tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52376321168300481382018-02-14T03:11:29.878-08:00Ball 'n' ChainObservations from an adventurous and aging type 1 diabetic woman in transition. Join me on the journey. Ellen Malingnoreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-48466973205533011082018-01-25T04:36:00.000-08:002018-01-25T04:36:07.046-08:002017 Year in Review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9pfVsLTxTKg/WmnOOxNW1xI/AAAAAAAAF9Q/g_x636WsaAsppxfgX1sZBaVqmIrikBu-QCLcBGAs/s1600/Scan_20180124.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1209" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9pfVsLTxTKg/WmnOOxNW1xI/AAAAAAAAF9Q/g_x636WsaAsppxfgX1sZBaVqmIrikBu-QCLcBGAs/s640/Scan_20180124.jpg" width="483" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-77570072306633011462017-12-30T08:59:00.000-08:002017-12-30T08:59:06.993-08:00Not Turning Back<span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Earlier this month,&nbsp;I realized an error in judgment that had irrecoverable consequences. In the days after,&nbsp;I went to Popham Beach&nbsp;to open myself up to whatever would happen next. There are moments when one needs a horizon and a long walk. Nearby to the beach,&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">in the summer of 1607, a group of English settlers arrived on the shores to set up an encampment and most retreated after one winter.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">The sand&nbsp;stretched long as the tide&nbsp;receded. Seagulls pecked at large clams washed up on the sand. Beach houses were boarded up, an old hotel and a restaurant&nbsp;had for sale signs on them. An imposing civil war era rock fort&nbsp;faced the Kennebec River's junction with the Gulf of Maine.&nbsp;</span><br /><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://bdn-data.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/10/45067001_H21598360-600x480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="600" height="256" src="https://bdn-data.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/10/45067001_H21598360-600x480.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy WH Ballard Collection | Bangor Daily News</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">There's been </span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">s</span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">ome controversy&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">in recent months withi</span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">n this little community at the end of the road.&nbsp;My interest was piqued last year with a large headline in the Brunswick Times Record,&nbsp; "<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><a href="http://www.timesrecord.com/news/2016-11-17/Front_Page/Beach_pilings_trigger_uproar.html" target="_blank">Beach Pilings Trigger Uproar</a>".&nbsp; The issue centers around the remnants of an old pier, which were&nbsp;constructed in the late 1800s by the Eastern Steamship Company. At that time,&nbsp;vacationers would come from Boston for fresh air, and working husbands would see the family on weekends. Popham was a thriving summer community then but recently seems to have suffered some hard times.&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Popham Beach has a long history of shifting sands, so the natural changes are a given way of life in the area. However, the human changes are more pronounced in recent years.&nbsp;</span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://photos.smugmug.com/MaineLighthouses-1/Popham-Beach-Life-Saving/i-vHNgHzc/0/d5d12872/L/3317642.-1497943729-O-L.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="800" height="214" src="https://photos.smugmug.com/MaineLighthouses-1/Popham-Beach-Life-Saving/i-vHNgHzc/0/d5d12872/L/3317642.-1497943729-O-L.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lighthouseguy.com</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">The owners of businesses have aged, and family priorities have emerged as this little spot at the end of the road has shifted. People are driving in for the day and less inclined to stay overnight unless it's in a cottage they've rented from Saturday to Saturday.&nbsp; In 2009, a wealthy investor purchased the Beach's historic life-saving station and some adjacent houses, now reportedly surrounded by a tall white fence.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Last year, a longstanding campground was sold to a Massachusetts&nbsp;developer who constructed a large main house and multiple condominiums on the property. In some ways, the transitions have occurred are another reflection of the tension between the "way we live here" and those "fancy people from away."&nbsp; It seems to be a familiar refrain in this place and point in time.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">The controversy escalated over the past year as </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">a wealthy construction magnate and his wife bought a property that overlooked the old pier, now weathered stumps of wood pounded into the sand, and started to secure the permits needed to remove them. A Facebook group erupted in indignation. People got organized, talked strategy and some made accusations. The magnate commissioned an engineering report that validated his suspicions, went through the permitting process, and was approved a couple of weeks ago. A crane on a barge will come in to shake them loose and remove them, and that part of history will disappear except for photos and memories.&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span> <br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://bdn-data.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/06/39307161_H20727258-600x450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://bdn-data.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/06/39307161_H20727258-600x450.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy of Bill Hanley | Bangor Daily News</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">As I walked, I reflected on the past. There are moments in all of our lives that we hope will fade, those times when we were rash, or argued poorly, or just didn't react well.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">For our personal histories, we should mourn the losses, and acknowledge the times when we regret what happened, and then move on.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">One can only trust in the process of rebuilding in whatever new context will evolve to replace a void.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">The discomfort in the immediate aftermath of change is the hardest part. Time does heal.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-5101420765843901832017-11-30T05:07:00.000-08:002017-12-30T08:57:14.690-08:00My Big BellyI've physically exploded since being back in America. 18 months of this new life has led to 15 pounds settling around my midsection. I recognize the choices that led me here. I've lost the resolve and commitments I maintained overseas. There's been a lot of driving combined with an escalating workload. Don't get me started about my grief for what is happening in America at this point in time.<br /><br /><div><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I8-ew-VNoIU/WhrF5ZYmiCI/AAAAAAAAFvg/wsgv8TBNMCIX6q-NjkZnmimNqYzV_9v9gCLcBGAs/s1600/chart.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="430" data-original-width="617" height="139" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I8-ew-VNoIU/WhrF5ZYmiCI/AAAAAAAAFvg/wsgv8TBNMCIX6q-NjkZnmimNqYzV_9v9gCLcBGAs/s200/chart.png" width="200" /></a></div><div>On these&nbsp;dark, rainy and cold days, I miss the Southeast Asian culture of communal physical activity. Family and friends gather for walks walk&nbsp;along the river promenades.&nbsp; "Aerobic" classes, where the brightly dressed instructor counted off repetitions in Thai and arms and legs flailed wildly, were offered in the park for $1,&nbsp; or the <a href="http://ellenmaling.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-key-conspiracy.html" target="_blank">fancy gym in Phnom Penh</a> where I would swim in the outdoor pool glowing in lamplight several nights a week and marvel at the bats feeding just above the surface. Even now, as I drive to one job or another, I look at runners and cyclists alongside roads traversing the neighboring farmland and long for their commitment. My work&nbsp;schedule always seemed to get in the way.<br /><div><br /></div><div>In recent months, as I crept 5 pounds above my "never line" on the scale, the malcontent with my body has settled in like a dark cloud surrounding belly. This area is where I deliver my insulin, by syringe, upwards of 4 times a day. At times, when life is particularly frenetic and I'm doing a shot at a desk or under a table, my belly is peppered with small bruises. This seems to be a normal part of middle age, but I'm not happy with the saggy. Friends and acquaintances ask supportively, "Have you had your thyroid checked?" "You know this happens with menopause, right?" or "What about a class?"</div><div><br /></div><div>On bad days, I retreat into invisibility, nodding and non-committal to their&nbsp;encouragement. Perhaps my struggle with accepting my belly is just another symptom of the trauma that's affecting the nation. People are worried and humorless, concerned about<span style="background-color: #f6d5d9;"></span>&nbsp;proposed tax code may impact small&nbsp;entrepreneurs&nbsp;like myself and lots of other Mainers. Or the crazy stuff the President says. I see them on the retail job, hoping&nbsp;to afford a new coat for Christmas. It's not pretty.<br /><br />I'm exhausted (and at times elated) by the juggle of other priorities that have characterized the past six months, but it is clearly time to try a new tactic and bring in reinforcements to reaching goals. That's why, in December, my frugal self is making an investment. I'm talking to a personal finance coach to tame my&nbsp;wacky puzzle of income, and set financial goals for 2018.<br /><br />I'm also making an investment to reclaim my&nbsp;life. I'm going beyond the cheap gym in the mall ($100 for a year!) and into a six-month plan with a wellness coach. Maybe some support on the business development too. Because when the going gets tough and there's a big job ahead, it makes sense to build a team.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/groos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="800" height="204" src="https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/groos.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-16813517383542154522017-10-31T05:07:00.003-07:002017-12-30T08:56:44.205-08:00Endless Autumn<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gMy23_ZmPEI/WfkUiU5KpbI/AAAAAAAAFsM/VUOkVfZYeBkIEjst4CzX6xOgaI9Tn3WUACLcBGAs/s1600/20171017_122309.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gMy23_ZmPEI/WfkUiU5KpbI/AAAAAAAAFsM/VUOkVfZYeBkIEjst4CzX6xOgaI9Tn3WUACLcBGAs/s320/20171017_122309.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wow!</td></tr></tbody></table>Last week I had a very early morning departure to Farmington Maine for some client work. I crossed the Androscoggin River while river smoke wisped up, gently and still, as I crossed the bridge and glanced downstream. The sun was bright and the maple trees were resplendent and joyful in the beginning of the day.&nbsp; This autumn in New England has been long and slow, balmy and beautiful.&nbsp; I was happy to be on the road and getting paid, feeling the reassurance of another season coming, settling in roots.<br /><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: right;"></div>I've always marked my "new year" in October. It's the anniversary of my T1 diagnosis (1969) and other significant events: marking the terminal end of the summer guiding season, moves to new places, beginnings of new jobs. This year, October has been a long, slow progression of leaves slowly turning and clinging to branches for weeks and of the temperature remaining downright balmy.<br /><br />That all changed with your flash hurricane very early Sunday morning. The wind blew to 70 mph in short bursts just before dawn. I stayed in bed as the day lightened, a little disconcerted with what the day would bring, and headed over to check on the folks before I went to work at the retail job later that morning.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNYiLM9UMAEfwmE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNYiLM9UMAEfwmE.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now that's a smack down,<br /><a class="account-group js-account-group js-action-profile js-user-profile-link js-nav" data-user-id="1650666414" href="https://twitter.com/benmwphoto" style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); color: #657786; font-family: &quot;segoe ui&quot;, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; outline: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="FullNameGroup u-textTruncate" style="color: #657786; font-family: &quot;segoe ui&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; word-wrap: normal;"><strong class="fullname show-popup-with-id " data-aria-label-part="" style="color: #1da1f2;">Benjamin Williamson</strong>‏<span class="UserBadges" style="font-size: 0.9em;"></span><span class="UserNameBreak">&nbsp;</span></span><span class="username u-dir" data-aria-label-part="" dir="ltr" style="color: #657786; direction: ltr; font-family: &quot;segoe ui&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , sans-serif; outline: 0px; unicode-bidi: embed;">@benmwphoto</span></a></td></tr></tbody></table>Trees were down, the ground littered with sticks, lights were out. The line at the Dunkin Donuts stretched down the highway. The retail job had generator power, and my folks went south to visit my sister. I picked up a can of stove fuel before I left work and headed home carefully in the deep dark, the absence of glowing fixtures making me wonder how long this would last. It was worse than the ice storm of 1998.<br /><br />Later that evening, my housemate and I huddled around the roaring camp stove in the backyard making hot drinks in the moonlight. It's been 6 years since I left Alaska and packed up the camping gear the time between the birth of a child and their first day of kindergarten. The lights came on this morning, and I feel I am ready for anything.<br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-458-SC_bU5g/Wfhjd00g2PI/AAAAAAAAFrs/V_nyJvoKvkglsoALq6kkGAjl-rSDwIG1wCKgBGAs/s1600/20171019_172747.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-458-SC_bU5g/Wfhjd00g2PI/AAAAAAAAFrs/V_nyJvoKvkglsoALq6kkGAjl-rSDwIG1wCKgBGAs/s400/20171019_172747.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'd pruned the globe thistle at the garden after the first<br />bloom.Nice to see the bees feeding so late.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-91395241183999296012017-09-30T23:30:00.000-07:002017-10-01T05:00:48.558-07:00The End of the World As We Know It<div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">The world didn't end on September 23, as a number of biblical literalists had predicted.&nbsp; <a href="http://start.att.net/exclusive/audience/the-sign-documentary" target="_blank">The Sign,</a>&nbsp;a documentary that tries to make a case for coming doom. The believers interpreted the unusual celestial alignment event where the planets of Mercury, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter will be close to the constellations of Virgo and Leo, with the sun and moon also hanging around, as a symbol that the world would end.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/09/13/550713417/is-the-apocalypse-coming-no-it-isn-t?utm_source=facebook.com&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=npr&amp;utm_term=nprnews&amp;utm_content=20170914" target="_blank">NPR covered it.</a>&nbsp;<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/09/13/screen-shot-2017-09-13-at-1.37.56-pm_wide-53516a9183c379e5a33ad98904a225175ae317f6-s1600-c85.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/09/13/screen-shot-2017-09-13-at-1.37.56-pm_wide-53516a9183c379e5a33ad98904a225175ae317f6-s1600-c85.png" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screen shot from&nbsp;<em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #767676; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: start; vertical-align: baseline;">The Sign</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #767676; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: start;">,.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">It didn't end but feels like the earth is having a huge temper tantrum. Multiple hurricanes whirled through the American south. Let us not forget the fires that decimated&nbsp;Montana, Oregon, and California. While barely covered in US media, but this year's August monsoon in East Asia was unprecedented in its&nbsp;breadth, affecting 41 million people with&nbsp;floods and landslides.&nbsp; In September,&nbsp; earthquakes ravaged Mexico, Vanatau and other islands perched on the edge of the Ring of Fire. Activity is escalating as I write this,&nbsp; a volcano in Bali rumbling to life and evacuations in progress.<br /><br />In the relative safety of Maine, I reflected back on several disasters I lived through over the years I lived in Anchorage.&nbsp; The eruption of Mount Spurr, which dumped ash over Anchorage. A windstorm that blew satellite dishes off the roofs, and sometimes the roof itself.&nbsp; The now typical combination of snow and warm temperatures that results in a coating of ice across the city.&nbsp;<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nXXWjSklwYo/UPSJPQtVZlI/AAAAAAAAGPQ/Rgv8v4dSkaA/s1600/480548_10151328208518168_467698435_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nXXWjSklwYo/UPSJPQtVZlI/AAAAAAAAGPQ/Rgv8v4dSkaA/s1600/480548_10151328208518168_467698435_n.jpg" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="750" height="160" width="200" /></a></div></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">Many years ago, I held several small stones of pumice in my hand on the final days of a Savonoski Loop in the wilds of&nbsp; Southwest Alaska. The floating pebbles bobbed amid the boulders on a rocky shore on an island in Naknek Lake, a result of the&nbsp;Novarupta volcano. In 1912, the eruption was thirty times larger than Mount St Helens. The sound of the explosion reached Juneau, 750 miles away, an hour after it happened. Because of its&nbsp;remote location, it killed only 2 people and changed a landscape forever.&nbsp;<br /><br />For so many living in the midst of disaster, it is impossible to consider what will evolve beyond the turmoil of the immediate disaster. Aldeth Lewin, a Vermonter living in the U.S. Virgin Islands, recently wrote on her Facebook page.<br /><br /><i>"<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Every day I learn about another family who left and who isn't coming back. At least not for many more months. Ari's class has dropped from about 25 to about 6. So, yeah, "normal" doesn't exist anymore.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">&nbsp;</span></i><br /><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I am more hopeful than I was a week ago, and still less hopeful than I was two weeks ago. Because like my co-worker said, we are all doing the aftermath shuffle - one step forward and three steps back.&nbsp;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">We'll get there.&nbsp;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Eventually.&nbsp;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I hope."</span></i><br />From my safe space, perhaps I can dream for all of them. I can meditate on their path back to normalcy, maintain the hope that the new developments will not repeat the mistakes of the old, and believe that their trauma will be resolved and lead to further resiliency. Keep the consciousness of their difficulties. Know that the earth, in all her power, will survive and that humankind may not.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/guh7i7tHeZk/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/guh7i7tHeZk?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-40312827498449626202017-08-30T04:26:00.003-07:002017-08-30T04:43:34.601-07:00Message from the Universe<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Summer is ending and I am feeling wistful for what could have been. Looking back on a few meager Maine adventures and the week at sea, I’m a tad regretful that I worked so much over the past two months. As the sun rushes back to the horizon and the sunflowers stand tall and triumphant, the air has a brisk sense of crispness for the ripening of harvests and the beginning of foliage season. </span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.graytvinc.com/images/810*455/pumpkin+winner+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://media.graytvinc.com/images/810*455/pumpkin+winner+.jpg" data-original-height="449" data-original-width="800" height="179" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Great Pumpkin winner at the Alaska State Fair.<br />Grown entirely with hydroponics, the pumpkin weighed in at<br />1,231.5 pounds. &nbsp;A tradition at the end of August in Alaska.</td></tr></tbody></table><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead of feeling rich with summer's bounty, I'm tattered, juggling and plate spinning on work projects. The retail job hired me part-time with benefits and increased my hours. I applied in the midst of the ACA controversy as the memories of the crippling costs of self-insurance in Alaska were painful. I don’t think that was a mistake to move to "permanent", but the tide is rushing with the consulting work as well. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are three other concurrent projects on deck; good work with great people. Hours have become precious, scheduled, and dedicated to specific things: tasks, cooking, driving, and eating and sleeping. I was happily distracted to have two different houseguests who each came for day days for the third week of August, long-time friends who traveled long hours to get to Maine.</span></div><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On a Sunday afternoon after the last guest had left, when I descended the stairs after stripping the beds, I missed the last step and sprained my ankle. Pain erupted; I heard something click. When the hubbub subsided and I R.I.C.E’d without relief, I headed off to the clinic. Nothing was broken, but the orders were clear. I couldn’t go to work at the retail job on Monday. </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/solar_eclipse_nasa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="800" height="217" src="https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/solar_eclipse_nasa.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from NASA.<br />https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/solar_eclipse_nasa.jpg</td></tr></tbody></table><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I felt a cascade of relief wash over me and called in sick. &nbsp;I made a long list of things that had been bugging me to get done, and the next morning I ensconced myself into a comfy chair with an ice pack, knocked out tasks, made a pinhole box viewer for the Eclipse, and a plan to meet a friend for an afternoon at the beach to watch it. In the afternoon on the rocky shore, the tide drifted out, I shared my shadow in the bottom of the box with my friend and a young mother and son. I bathed in the waning afternoon sun, taking nourishment in the sea air. It was a wonderful moment to be celebrating nature's power with other Americans. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rDBG7HoEHzc/VuHlbxkoMKI/AAAAAAAAJlk/OiE-zGWp_CA/s1600/universe%2Benergy%2Bfrenquency%2Bvibrations.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="346" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rDBG7HoEHzc/VuHlbxkoMKI/AAAAAAAAJlk/OiE-zGWp_CA/s200/universe%2Benergy%2Bfrenquency%2Bvibrations.jpg" width="186" /></a></div><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In accidents like this, the message from the Universe is clear. Slow down. Pay attention. Use your support system (the railing). There’s plenty of time if you bring intention to each minute. It was a wake-up call, a reckoning, a realization that I'd like to dedicate more time to walking and nature and exploring new places. That will happen right after I wrap up short project #2...</span></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-3004234399750417932017-07-30T05:52:00.000-07:002017-07-30T05:59:55.353-07:00At Sea<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kdAxEa6qNmU/WX3Ro8qGMII/AAAAAAAAFTA/W1LhWuRwVy4kPlzNp2TubnKTQv1Rc48LACLcBGAs/s1600/20170710_050108.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kdAxEa6qNmU/WX3Ro8qGMII/AAAAAAAAFTA/W1LhWuRwVy4kPlzNp2TubnKTQv1Rc48LACLcBGAs/s320/20170710_050108.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I woke up just as the sun was emerging from the horizon. The ocean was calm after a rocky 24 hours crossing the Gulf Stream on our way to Bermuda. During the day, My sister and I sloshed around, buffeted by high winds and pelting rain, in the hot-tub on the highest deck. The family “Gala Dinner” was marked by sea sickness. I felt germophobic around the overwhelming sense of too many bodies in a small space. On that fresh new morning of a new day, the air on the small veranda was bright and clear. &nbsp;We were due to navigate 2 rock passage and arrive in Hamilton Harbor mid-day. </span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8HQJ_uDJTjk/WX3S_WK9gaI/AAAAAAAAFTM/-4LPpjbZLTwcNdS1DaIAAYmUkYtfSdgUQCLcBGAs/s1600/20170713_131254-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8HQJ_uDJTjk/WX3S_WK9gaI/AAAAAAAAFTM/-4LPpjbZLTwcNdS1DaIAAYmUkYtfSdgUQCLcBGAs/s320/20170713_131254-2.jpg" title="" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The harbor pilot boarded the Veendam to<br />navigate through the many rocky hazards<br />that surround&nbsp;Bermuda.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><b id="docs-internal-guid-b81f8408-9368-dbc5-207f-4c9d5fee143d" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That morning reminded me of the early stages of my vagabond life after I left the intense job working on the streets of Boston. &nbsp;I’d made my way south to Key West and pursued an idea of working as crew on long-haul boats after the taxi-cab and Pedi-cab business became tiresome. Micki, when presented with a willing woman for a job aboard, hired me to work on an overnight sport-fishing charter to the Tortuga Islands about 70 miles offshore with about 75 males. I showed up to the M/V Fishfinder with a small bag. The captain looked me over skeptically. “I can’t believe you brought bananas on a fishing boat.” He said, narrowing his eyes, “It’s bad luck.” </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.scgpix.com/listimg/img1_0417/18/img_X4e17NILzvRi3KJ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://img.scgpix.com/listimg/img1_0417/18/img_X4e17NILzvRi3KJ.jpg" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="600" height="216" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I found the name of the vessel in my journals and discovered<br />that it was deployed in Sentry Duty during the Gulf Oil Spill.</td></tr></tbody></table><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I worked 8 hours on, 8 hours off for two days. I remember dunking my hands in bleach water between bait sets. The effort was rough, dirty and sharp with hooks, knives and a boat that would pitch back in forth amid the fisherman’s expectations. In a gentle moment at dawn when lines were in the water and all were waiting for action, I looked up and out to the horizon.The surface of the sea glowed in lavender velvet, undulating gently. Then, the boat hit a run. I baited hooks and the men gaffed up brilliant red snapper, huge muttons and a Cobia eel that had nearly tied itself around the bait at the end of the hook. Hauled up on the deck, writhing with indignation, the male crew hit the fish on the head until they lay, pristine and peaceful, cold and iridescent, on the deck. At night, the stars swayed in the rocking of the boat, a single vessel in the midst of a large ocean.</span></div><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I shared my story to a colleague recently: &nbsp;the escape from the emotionally draining work on the streets of Boston to exploring wild places alone and the risks I took. “How courageous.” she said, “and all by yourself.” &nbsp;I replied, in hindsight and recollection of that time in my life and the impact on family, “My poor parents.” </span></div><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Bermuda trip was a milestone, a reconnection with my mother’s family, a revitalization of my parent’s love of traveling and a marker for moving into a new housing situation that is cheap and close to my folks. Life has settled in and I’ve put down some roots. I now better understand the patterns of perennials and landscapes. I have plenty of work. Local connections are building and solidifying. I have everyday relationships with family. &nbsp;I am no longer alone</span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowFullScreen='true' webkitallowfullscreen='true' mozallowfullscreen='true' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyje2ZHyKbRifrCYnl7KH0xijL64-pemI4HNkVAHIBFoRqnKAyUjzkZEik58evqRvdU6iHx9I413Lzn1O_nlw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' FRAMEBORDER='0' /></div><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">P.S. The video above was taken by Hartley Helmet Diving, a long-time Bermuda family that pioneered the old school technology that gets you really close to the action. <a href="http://www.hartleybermuda.com/">www.hartleybermuda.com</a></span></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-46073999670939584482017-06-30T04:53:00.000-07:002017-06-30T05:01:08.916-07:00Crossing a BorderThe scenery changed as I drove north. As I left the well-tended places on the coast, I noticed how the paint on the houses peeled and cracked as the shrubbery, vines and surrounding grasslands crept up around. The human developments: housing, barns, and silos, were wearisome and abandoned. I suspected there were folks hanging on, trapped by poverty and&nbsp;circumstance into a life with a predictable outcome or perhaps they'd left entirely. Then, I crossed the border to Canada into their Eastern Townships of southern Quebec.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://infohemmingford.org/english/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/4temps1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://infohemmingford.org/english/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/4temps1.jpg" data-original-height="363" data-original-width="800" height="145" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hemmingford in Quebec</td></tr></tbody></table>Bucolic farms and vineyards dotted the well-maintained, curvy roads of the&nbsp;touristic region. Hand-carved signs stated the enterprises along the road: Bed and Breakfasts, Inns, farms advertising meats and cheeses for sale. As I drove west to my friend's house, the region expanded into working farms.<br /><br />My friend R lives with her 85-year-old mother just north of the northern edge of New York State, a bit west of Vermont. R and I first met in the Pacific Northwest in 2000, where we'd both participated in a multi-week program for trainers and consultants sponsored by an environmental foundation. We'd reconnected six years ago (thanks Facebook!). Recently, in an unfortunate twist of events, she was preparing to depart for a gig as a vegetarian chef for a meditation center in France when she was diagnosed with uterine cancer and underwent surgery. After a few radiotherapy treatments, she'll be under follow-up; it wasn't aggressive cancer.<br /><br />Here she was, in Quebec for the summer for the first time since she was a child, recovering. Their small house was the original border crossing station, with an impressive, ancient barn in the back. The next day, on a rainy morning, we took a walk down Roxham Road. "It's famous.", R said. &nbsp;In the first months after Trump's&nbsp;inauguration, hundreds of people crossed the ditch into Canada less than a kilometer from her house.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://i.cbc.ca/1.3998586.1488760851!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_620/cda-us-border-refugees-20170217.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="424" data-original-width="620" height="218" src="https://i.cbc.ca/1.3998586.1488760851!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_620/cda-us-border-refugees-20170217.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Where the border is a ditch. Photo: CBC.ca</td></tr></tbody></table><br />It was WorldRefugee Day on the day that I drove the long road back to Maine. The radio stated facts and statistics of transitions. The U.N. Refugee Commission states that there were 65 million people forcibly displaced in 2016, setting a world record. Most of them were from Syria. &nbsp;This <a href="http://metrocosm.com/asylum-seekers/" target="_blank">fantastic and colorful interactive map&nbsp;</a>shows the flow of asylum seekers but does not include illegal migrants.<br /><br />As I again traveled through the back roads of northern New England's beleaguered rural communities, I considered the forces of war, famine, and fear that would propel a migration. War, famine, and poverty that would propel,, a family of four to abandon their homes and stay in a refugee camp. The largest cluster of which, in Dadaab, Kenya, supports over 500,000 people largely from Somalia. Another camp in Uganda, Bidi Bidi, now has 274,000 residents from South Sudan. Approximately 2,800 people a day arrived in the month of March alone.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-YT447_0903ca_M_20130903090755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-YT447_0903ca_M_20130903090755.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal</td></tr></tbody></table>On the television, a presence that figures prominently in my parent's house, the sounds of verbal conflicts, clashes of violence, the blather of a blundering fiqurehead and the occasional NRA advertisement drift up into my second-floor living space. &nbsp;By no means comparative to the forces that propel refugees, there are moments when I have visions of fleeing. I think of others trapped by their far more difficult circumstances and wonder how they manage. How they live until they reach their own border, and make the decision to cross to another side.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-48733712404463460482017-05-29T16:07:00.000-07:002017-05-29T16:51:56.058-07:00Stability in Mud <span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">I was standing ankle deep in soupy mud on the Appalachian&nbsp;Trail feeling right at home in the woods, but a bit different in the group. &nbsp;I'd joined a group of employees from the long-standing New England retail brand for which I have been working for the past 8 months. &nbsp;It was rare for a seasonal, on-call employee to join these bi-annual work parties; the average tenure of the small group was over 15&nbsp;years of consecutive service. &nbsp;</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ai4RWZD9thQ/WSyolHJKCzI/AAAAAAAAE_4/R_v_8XbQ0j4NFtjLTKx1IHhTiRt_eJHgACEw/s1600/Ellen%2B%25231.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ai4RWZD9thQ/WSyolHJKCzI/AAAAAAAAE_4/R_v_8XbQ0j4NFtjLTKx1IHhTiRt_eJHgACEw/s320/Ellen%2B%25231.jpg" width="240" /></a></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">&nbsp;I'd joined the trip to shake down the camping equipment that had been in storage for the past 6 years, get re-acquainted with New England forests, and meet new people. It was a cheap, life-affirming foray into my old self, but it also awakened the tension between my love for the flexibility of a consulting practice, and a tinge of envy for steady work and benefits.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">Earlier this month, I read&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/my-life-as-a-retail-worker-nasty-brutish-and-poor/284332/" target="_blank">Joseph Williams's essay recounting of his stint as a retail worker</a>. The article hit a couple of threads for me: the feeling of desperation in applying for retail work, his practice of dumbing down his resume to get a job, and the moment when a classy, recently retired bureaucrat female comes into to the store.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><br /></span><br /><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">"As I fitted her for shoes and checked her stride, we struck up a conversation about politics, finance, and the fact that not a single Wall Street banker had ended up in jail. Then, Jan hit me with a question I hadn’t considered in the months since I hustled my way into a job I didn’t want, had to have, and had come to accept. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">“So, Joe,” she asked, “What is it that you really do?”</span></div><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">I paused, slightly taken aback. I sell shoes, I told her. That’s my job.</span></div><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">“Yes, I understand,” she persisted. “But what do you&nbsp;<em>really do?”</em></span></div><div style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">By that point, it was clear what she meant:&nbsp;<b><em>Why are you here</em>? </b>"&nbsp;</span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I am feeling loyal and grateful to&nbsp;be involved with the business even if the hourly wage is meager. &nbsp;It's another decent gig in the ball-juggling of my work life right now, and that's ok.&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">My colleagues on the floor are good, solid, happy, and intelligent people to work with. Some have&nbsp;</span></span>been <span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">in long enough to be able to secure the benefits package with flexible, part-time employment, a boon for the real estate agents, financial advisers, house cleaners, artists, and gig workers behind the counter. I wonder if I'll make it into that category, or if those are days gone by.&nbsp;</span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BawvcNDnKy0/WSyolZlGkcI/AAAAAAAAFAE/KL_tjO1Ma2QivoErMa-8EUAoYyssqxlvQCEw/s1600/20170524_184200%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BawvcNDnKy0/WSyolZlGkcI/AAAAAAAAFAE/KL_tjO1Ma2QivoErMa-8EUAoYyssqxlvQCEw/s320/20170524_184200%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A temp job for May: collect and maintain<br />inventory for a plant sale.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">In the carpool to the trailhead, I heard the stories of wellness programs, new computer systems, learning opportunities, and supportive office dynamics. &nbsp;I didn't mention that my employment juggling has reached a new frenzy this month with securing a short-term event management contract. I was running so hard in the days before the trip that I forgot to pack socks (I remembered the liners, so that worked), made a rash decision to forgo my cookpot (used the big pots provided instead) and realized, on my way to to rondevous point, that I we were taking my car and I'd neglected to it properly tidied up for the 4-hour drive to the trailhead (it didn't matter).&nbsp;</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">While hiking through the forest to start the first day's work on the Appalacian Trail,&nbsp;</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">I reflected on a trip of days gone by from Alaska. For a few years, I went on trips with <a href="http://www.wildernessvolunteers.org/" target="_blank">Wilderness Volunteers</a>&nbsp;in the spring time, largely seeking cheap and meaningful ways to escape break-up.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">I flew from Alaska to Phoenix and hiked up a mountain in the Tonto National Forest the next day. My breath was labored, the backpack loaded with too much water, and I was plodding along at the end of the pack. The trip leader was concerned. "I'm having Beluga Factor.", I gasped. The concerned group of slower hikers looked at me quizzically until I explained that I was suffering from the transition from cool ocean to hot desert, and everyone laughed.&nbsp;<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-24vltWeTZaE/WSyolGfiD4I/AAAAAAAAFAE/C0quU7Q9qVs97rBI9WbYL3mz4L3tc9pbQCEw/s1600/IMG_2322.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-24vltWeTZaE/WSyolGfiD4I/AAAAAAAAFAE/C0quU7Q9qVs97rBI9WbYL3mz4L3tc9pbQCEw/s320/IMG_2322.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Much of the work involved clearing drainage<br />areas to help reduce the amount of mud<br />on the trail.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table></span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">Indeed, this work party was also a milestone: one year back in the U.S., a chance to bond with corporate, and form a connection to rich, dark forest duff, the delicate painted Trillium, the grunt and heave of a shovel and the beauty of a gently upwelling spring. &nbsp;I was touched on the final night, when I recieved a "first-year" pin and a hug for participating.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;"><br /></span> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , serif;">Now, I need to stay focused on living this life in full, not in envy of benefits or in fear of work uncertainty, but in the rich unfolding of this life stage and the honor of checking the box that says,&nbsp;"55-64."</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><br />Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-12649693880173623562017-04-30T05:21:00.000-07:002017-05-06T17:22:21.287-07:00War Stories from WorkIn April, I turned 55, officially launched a consulting practice and experienced yet another shifting of my workaday Universe. There was a week of waiting, after 3 interviews and reference checks, on a part-time job that I was excited about. In the same&nbsp;timeframe, there were two unexpected and "leaving in 2 weeks" resignations at another organization where I have been involved.<br /><br />The people left with tattered spirits. There was a myriad of circumstances in their transition. Both were burned out and frustrated by organizational dysfunction and mismatched expectations. They tired beyond words. I found myself skirting their presence, recognizing the tell-tale signs of mission-driven work gone wrong. I'd seen it before-- both in myself and in others.<br /><div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/8b/ab/3c/8bab3c5bf0acdaf16571fa66b91d6482--right-brain-the-brain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/8b/ab/3c/8bab3c5bf0acdaf16571fa66b91d6482--right-brain-the-brain.jpg" width="288" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://www.pinterest.com/arttxalliance/art-the-brain</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I willingly admit that I have baggage. The litany of experiences that I've gained in the seven jobs I've worked and many other clients since I started professional work in 1998 have honed my skills, but also generated some scars. Last&nbsp;year, after I regrouped from my experiment in Boston employment, I created a list of all of the transitions I've endured while working full-time in organizations:<br /><br /></div><div>2 times welcoming a new Executive Director&nbsp;</div><div>4 office moves&nbsp;</div><div>1 death of a colleague</div><div>2 near-misses that could have resulted in a public relations crisis</div><div>1 loss of a major donor's funding that (I came in weeks after it happened)&nbsp;</div><div>1 layoff&nbsp;</div><div>2 cases of severely absent leadership</div><div>the year I submitted eight w-2 forms with my taxes</div><div><br />When I returned to the US in May, &nbsp;the main goal of this next step was to work with happy people in a perfect job- a position that was dynamic, flexible, growth-oriented and fun. I found opportunities and organizations that sounded good on paper but that never called me in to discuss. More than once, I was interviewed because the committee was interested in my background but already had other final candidates. I applied for jobs even though I was overqualified. I keep hustling because one never knows in a small town like Maine what connections will come. &nbsp;But there are times when I find it wearisome.</div><div><br />This process of continued searching tests your mettle. I've lost and regained confidence and made a bit dent in my savings despite&nbsp;Obamacare subsidies and frugality. I continue to reach out. Launching the website and the business made me connect with the person that I am. The one who shows up just at the right time to move organizations through whatever transitions they are experiencing at the time.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PejBkU4-1fk/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PejBkU4-1fk?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-71621060315208196042017-03-30T04:13:00.000-07:002017-03-30T04:17:53.649-07:00Timelines<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sentence glared at me from the screen. “Before you can submit your taxes electronically, you must first verify your identity with the Federal Government. In the box below, write the amount of your income from line 22 of your previous year’s tax return.” &nbsp;A flush of doubt overcame me, a plumb line dropped to uncertainty, and checked my files. I emailed the accountant. Somehow, in my frenetic and emotional departure from Cambodia in the first three months of 2016, I completely forgot to file my taxes for 2015.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-3845b740-1202-74da-8c21-ffd684330e3b" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has now been a year since I left the Kingdom. In some moments, the weeks and months feel eternal. Then again, I think that the New Year could not have been 3 months ago. I measure time in journals, short bits of chronicles around daily life, lists of worries and resolutions, reassurances and debriefs, snapshot paragraphs of daily life.</span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T57dUI-lnos/WNmq8pqfZUI/AAAAAAAAEuI/E9dQ6U5ds_4E2wc0SDoDygBKxNAiSLFGQCLcB/s1600/2016journals.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T57dUI-lnos/WNmq8pqfZUI/AAAAAAAAEuI/E9dQ6U5ds_4E2wc0SDoDygBKxNAiSLFGQCLcB/s200/2016journals.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2016 in a couple of books</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 2010, when I was cleaning out the big box of journals, I finally sat down and chronicled the space between 1989 and 1996. Those years I spent time in seasons, moving along as a migrant worker following the fruitful fields of the seasonal tourism business. I did not measure my days through birthdays or anniversaries, but instead in activities, landscapes and ecosystems. Jobs. Friends.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The time now also marks nearly a year since seeing my good friend from Cambodia at her parent’s home in British Columbia. I’d helped her access the hospital's radiologist when she felt another lump and panicked. It was not good news. She</span><a href="http://ellenmaling.blogspot.com/2015/12/forever-friends.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> packed her bags</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and left. Months later, as I was on my way home </span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">from Sydney and I could use my Alaska Air miles,</span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I lofted an idea for a visit and she was happy to see me. She picked me up, we had a couple of drinks that night and went to bed early.</span></div><div style="text-align: right;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://thypolarlife.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/time-warp.jpg?w=300&amp;h=294" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://thypolarlife.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/time-warp.jpg?w=300&amp;h=294" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://thypolarlife.files.wordpress.com</td></tr></tbody></table><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The night's sleep progressed into mid-morning. We took a short walk to the rocky sea shore and she rested on a bench in the bright sun,looking out on a familiar landscape of dark green spruce, blue sea, and gray rocks. I was jet-lagged to the nth degree. She was fatigued from the endless battle with cancer, her local Doctor’s dickheadedness and the daily travails of hair loss and treatments. We had 2 good days: some shopping, a lunch, treatments, cannabis purchase. I drove her around. We didn’t talk about it then. I hoped it was not inevitable, but the odds seemed impossible. I mustered hope for her. We messaged and talked a few times over the winter, the last time regaling a sketchy Vitamin C infusion treatment during her holiday in Mexico with her sweetheart. She left us this week.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Who’s to know how fast the time will go when we will have so few moments left? &nbsp;These current months are going by so quickly and yet so slowly. I’m torn between embracing each precious moment when outside moving in Nature, and then wishing moments would be over when vacuuming, or witnessing an argument, or bothered by the circular anxiety of insomnia. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /><span id="docs-internal-guid-9e1aa99f-1eea-05df-0a1a-9103b3d423b6"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Each one has its own timeline, the journey of our life in all its creative manifestations, twists and turns, times to speed up and other times to go slow. &nbsp;Stephen Hawking,</span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1269288/STEPHEN-HAWKING-How-build-time-machine.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in an article about Time Travel</span></a><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, wrote, To see what that means, let's imagine we're doing a bit of normal, everyday car travel. Drive in a straight line and you're travelling in one dimension. Turn right or left and you add the second dimension. Drive up or down a twisty mountain road and that adds height, so that's travelling in all three dimensions. But how on Earth do we travel in time? How do we find a path through the fourth dimension?" &nbsp;He concludes talking about wormholes, ripples and wrinkles in time that exist all around us in microcosmic ways. &nbsp;About the wonder of the Universe. &nbsp;Safe travels beyond my friend.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-urHy7OwstGo/WNmM_TX3IMI/AAAAAAAAEsk/0hVYe3mDI8QTAKQwTmcTSJXy-xkc8ETLQCLcB/s1600/20140921_180934.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-urHy7OwstGo/WNmM_TX3IMI/AAAAAAAAEsk/0hVYe3mDI8QTAKQwTmcTSJXy-xkc8ETLQCLcB/s320/20140921_180934.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 12pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-38052934118293763332017-02-28T17:50:00.001-08:002017-02-28T17:53:23.244-08:00A Long, Dark and Snowy Road<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In mid-February, wind-raged snow blustered outside the window as the Nor'easter picked up force on Saturday and continued through Monday morning. The landscape was an unceasing swirling white of steady flakes through day and night. I'd lost 2 shifts on the retail job for lack of work. When the day brightened on Monday morning, I was restless. The sounds of the news from my father's office and the classical music from my mother's kitchen radio were a discordant duet. For the first time in many years, I was in a live-in relationship where those that loved me cared about every move. </span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">After shoveling the little deck and readying for a night shift, a subtle cloud of worry emerged around the 7-mile drive to work. The fears of my own (going off the road, getting stuck) were manageable, I was troubled by the potential of how the incident would impact the peace of their daily life, creating a small drama to become a part of family lore. The obstacles that I had tackled alone for many years were now faced with people who loved me and were physically present nearly all the time. </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I drove, there were drifts of snow in small stretches of fields in between the forests. I recollected the decision, made in 1995, to drive alone through the Yukon Territory during a deep cold wave. There was a deadline. The warnings of other people weren't strong enough to overcome my imprudent choice to carry on with the trip. </span></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tJvbhvZW0Mk/WLVyjbyMluI/AAAAAAAAEf0/SoXMIjStEl0oCTpIDq-eallccsi7VWJQwCLcB/s1600/Screenshot%2B2017-02-28%2Bat%2B07.50.38%2B-%2BEdited.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tJvbhvZW0Mk/WLVyjbyMluI/AAAAAAAAEf0/SoXMIjStEl0oCTpIDq-eallccsi7VWJQwCLcB/s320/Screenshot%2B2017-02-28%2Bat%2B07.50.38%2B-%2BEdited.png" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I was working for a small ecotourism trade association in the coastal community of Valdez. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">That first winter in Alaska was tough. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Atypically, there was little snow. Blades of grass crunched, dust blew and I would trudge across an open ball field to a lonely office, and then return to a room in a trailer home that I'd rented from a traveling ice climber. My housemate shoveled snow and </span>mowed lawns<span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> for a living. Lee was a lanky, long-haired, dim bulb of sweetness.</span></span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One night Lee asked me to go camping. &nbsp;He didn’t have a car. &nbsp;"We’ll go 4-wheeling Ellen", he said, as I drove carefully on the rough, rocky road up the mountain on the back side of town. The air was terrifically crisp, deep space clear, cold and unforgiving. &nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We hustled into sleeping bags and ground covers, then covered again with blankets and a tarp. Our breath crystallized along the edge of our respective mustaches and hats. The northern lights flew and flowed. We were silent through the night.</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">&nbsp;Amid that resplendent and magical song of the arctic skies, there was really very little to say. </span></span></div><br /><span style="text-align: center; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">Days later in January, as the job hired a new Director and needed to move the office to Juneau, I left just before first light to make the journey through the Yukon Territory to Haines. As I descended into the valley on the north side of Thompson Pass, I watched the frost creep out across the windshield. An 8-inch circle, directly above the full force heat blower, was the only spot remained clear for the road ahead. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was dressed in&nbsp;heavy layers top and bottom. A bag at the ready for the small things I would need on the journey: &nbsp;a hot thermos, extra layers, a book, a headlamp, calories, a collection of cassette tapes. My </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">old Land Cruiser wagon was filled with computers, paper files and my own meager baggage. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> &nbsp;</span></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-maL1HWDdmeY/WLVy7wCWCHI/AAAAAAAAEf4/nyi8p-JNkBQFIaU9ZhUq4Rzv5z0r8pFsgCLcB/s1600/scan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-maL1HWDdmeY/WLVy7wCWCHI/AAAAAAAAEf4/nyi8p-JNkBQFIaU9ZhUq4Rzv5z0r8pFsgCLcB/s320/scan.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Here is the only photo of Buck the Truck that I could find.<br />This was taken on&nbsp;the return trip from Juneau to Anchorage<br />&nbsp;about&nbsp;4 years later.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: small;">&nbsp;</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With only a few hours of light for driving, m</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">y boss arranged an overnight stay with a member of the association that I worked for. I pulled into his driveway as the late afternoon slipped into darkness. The light of the outdoor freezer was on despite the fact that it was colder outside than inside. The house was a 100-degree difference than the temperature outside, a balmy 80. The large screen TV dominated the room. He mentioned that I'd sleep in a recliner downstairs, where it would be warmer.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"I'll show you around." he said, as we walked over to the nearby cabin where his hunting clients stay during the summer. The wolves were hanging there, swingingly slightly as we entered the space. &nbsp;Their pelts deep and rich, soft and hairs just a little flexible despite the cold. </span><br /><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;">&nbsp;"They are still being processed." he said, "I need to scrape them down again." </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I noticed the small bits of flesh and muscle still on the pelts. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Can’t do it now. &nbsp;Have to wait until it warms up." </span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The car was dead in the morning, not a glimmer of energy in the engine despite the block heater being plugged in. It was then about 30 below zero. &nbsp;I’d also left it in gear overnight, a rookie mistake. My host&nbsp;fetched a piece of kindling and jammed it between the seat and the clutch pedal. </span><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"We gotta warm it up enough to get it back in gear." He grumbled. I had now become something to deal with. He trotted off to the shed and returned with a </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">can of propane and a long tube of metal with what looked like a soup can on the end. &nbsp;He propped it up under the car, lit the burner and we watched and waited against the backdrop of tiny and resilient black spruce in this small cabin in the woods. The battery turned. The gear released. In hours, I was on my way again. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">This day was the longest stretch between Tok and Haines Junction. I felt a small nip of frostbite on a fueling stop and felt the surge of the 18-wheelers as they passed me. They were my only companions on the road. The passage was a determined exercise of trust and faith. I pulled into the roadhouse in the early night, had dinner and resolved to wake up and start the car every 2 hours to prevent yet another freeze up. At 4 am, I sleepily rationalized that I'd let it go just a couple hours. By 6:30, the car was dead and I needed to get a tow to the garage in town. Then, I headed on the final leg. The open flow of the Chilkat River and the above zero balminess of the coast was a palatable relief. The ferry left for Juneau hours later, off to a new home and a new life. </span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_RmaRHRRoQ0/WLVy_jjD-xI/AAAAAAAAEf8/zQd8wYmZeR4_aI_0ptGiShZ7xKOxn4hzwCEw/s1600/scan0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_RmaRHRRoQ0/WLVy_jjD-xI/AAAAAAAAEf8/zQd8wYmZeR4_aI_0ptGiShZ7xKOxn4hzwCEw/s320/scan0001.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Berner's Bay. One of my clients enjoying the<br />spectacular sunset. I worked summers in the field<br />while doing office work in the winter.&nbsp;</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica neue&quot; , &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-44455626695307412572017-01-25T05:27:00.000-08:002017-02-18T05:27:49.873-08:002016 Year in Review<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9bNGP9Vp4Fw/WIerRybzmfI/AAAAAAAAEMo/QKLS-0PeGCssBwj-DwKkG-xpgvTaWupVACLcB/s1600/scan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9bNGP9Vp4Fw/WIerRybzmfI/AAAAAAAAEMo/QKLS-0PeGCssBwj-DwKkG-xpgvTaWupVACLcB/s640/scan.jpg" width="494" /></a></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-14077302303210807322016-12-30T14:56:00.000-08:002017-01-01T17:56:31.621-08:00Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes<br />The phone rang late. My parents were off at an ice hockey game and the "this is it" thought crossed my mind when I saw the caller id. &nbsp;My mom's voice wavered. "John has had an accident and can't drive his car. We are going to take him home." &nbsp;It would have been a longish drive at night. In that instant I got worried.<br /><br />"Just come here and I'll drive you over there." I replied. &nbsp;Their fancy sedan pulled up moments later. John in the front seat. 90 years old, a bit discombobulated, rattling off the list of things that were on his schedule for tomorrow but now had to cancel. His daughter was coming up in the afternoon. He shuffled papers in his hands. He'd lost his glasses. It was so late. The home team lost the game.<br /><br />My folks spent a few minutes getting John settled into his house. He lived alone in the place he'd bought with his wife and my mom's close friend, who died a couple of years ago. Mom and Dad debriefed me on the way home. The car was totaled. He'd hit the bus of the visiting team while backing out of a parking space. A woman was injured. "What would come of him?Will they let him drive again? He's stuck so far out here." My mom wondered. &nbsp;For John, the accident was a milestone, a moment of profound change.<br /><br />Last year at this time, I was flying to Singapore at midnight like Santa on Christmas Eve. I spent 4 nights in the city for under $500, spent days hiking urban trails and exploring an island, saw The Force Awakens. In 2011, I was parading around the Buddhist school playground in a Santa costume leading the children in robust refrains of Jingle Bells. I was reminded, via Facebook, that 7 years ago I was bundled up around a campfire celebrating the Solstice in Alaska.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2iow5188upv2sqw551sez7fq.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/kubler-ross-change-curve.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2iow5188upv2sqw551sez7fq.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/kubler-ross-change-curve.png" height="239" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://www.happymelly.com/navigating-organizational-change-a-model/</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />Now, everything is different. For the first time since 1990, I am not traveling through multiple time zones to&nbsp;celebrate the holidays with the family. This is a very safe and comforting life. I am insulated with extra holiday pounds, overcooked vegetables and someone else doing snow removal. In this stasis week between major holidays and the upcoming end to the seasonal retail gig, I am unsettled and uncertain about what will emerge next. I'm grateful for the space-- in this condo community with my parents--to find the right fit and continue to look for righteous work without too many financial pressures. &nbsp;I am experiencing a life change that feels like a long simmering of beans cooking in the late winter afternoon, ripening of fruit, the growth of a tree.<br /><br /><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jrNFEfchnEk/WGRFWIqJRKI/AAAAAAAAEGA/5tiUwOCSkAEKiExU9lmqP4sIV7eD-tCegCLcB/s1600/Screenshot%2B2016-12-28%2Bat%2B17.58.54.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jrNFEfchnEk/WGRFWIqJRKI/AAAAAAAAEGA/5tiUwOCSkAEKiExU9lmqP4sIV7eD-tCegCLcB/s320/Screenshot%2B2016-12-28%2Bat%2B17.58.54.png" width="320" /></a><br />In early December I attended a webinar with Glenda Eoyang of the Human Systems Dynamics Institute on life changes. She started with her impression that her life would be a trajectory, a cumulative&nbsp;ascent of marriage, children, salaries, and houses. The change model of tidal charts and moon phases, gentle periods of fullness and emptiness, works for some folk. Glenda looks at change differently-- that the process of builds slowly, like the pressures of shifting tectonic plates and barometric pressures and culminates with a&nbsp;dramatic release of earthquakes and tumultuous storms.<br /><br />&nbsp;I don't know where I sit on these models, but I suspect I am wallowing in a steep valley in the dark time. &nbsp;As easy as this life should be, it feels a little uncomfortable. I still haven't hit the right gear for the upward climb. In just a couple of weeks, I may be unemployed in an&nbsp;American society with a bombastic, reactive, likely corrupt and wholly unattractive and unhappy leader with his band of gleeful billionaires ready to disrupt the tenets of civil society. Time to buckle up, shift into a lower gear and keep the foot on the gas.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UqDfscH3TQQ/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UqDfscH3TQQ?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div><br /><br />Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-47197173483666758682016-11-26T05:35:00.004-08:002017-01-01T17:55:40.501-08:00Tuning In <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/radio.gif" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/radio.gif" height="117" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/radio.gif</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> On a 2-lane highway somewhere in the deep hinterland of the American West, I heard about the meaning of April 19th. &nbsp;The details spewed out the car radio in my Toyota wagon as I made my way from my friend’s house in Montana to my sister’s house in Colorado, a pit stop in what was one long road trip in the early 90's as I vagabonded my way through America. I was cruising the waves, seeking something different than the cassette tapes that had become so predictable that they played over and over again in my mind long after I left the car. &nbsp;Listening was an easy connection to the local community in those hours of solo, road-trip travel through small towns. </span><br /><div style="text-align: right;"></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Along those lonely roads, the talk radio host went onto explain the significance of a citizen rebellion of government on that day, the anniversary of the 1775 Battle of Lexington and Concord. The man went on to talk about Waco, a 51 day month siege that ended on April 19th and the Oklahoma bombing that purposely occurred on the same day. &nbsp;It is still unclear if America’s first mass school shooting in Columbine Colorado was orchestrated for that day or Hitler’s birthday on the 16th. When I tuned in, I learned these things. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-271af46e-62a6-e246-26fe-4752a32bb629"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> An AM-band radio station kept me awake and focused during the early morning hours, after an epic two-day hike in the pouring rain with 10 elementary school children, a flooded stream and a burly co-guide who rigged a line across the torrent and carried each kid across, as they clung to his back. After more hours of hiking, the group slowing down into darkness, we loaded up, stopped for pizza and headed back to camp. The van was quiet with deep, exhausted breathing, the only sound was music and commentary from a station in New York City, miles away, but reaching me as I focused on the empty highway to home. </span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On another road trip to a job at a ski resort in Colorado, I hit a patch of black ice and felt helpless as the car tumbled over into a ravine. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In that second, I gave up to the forces around me. &nbsp;There was no control. &nbsp;There was no ability to change the trajectory. &nbsp;I was on a path and there was no turning back.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The small rocks on the dashboard, the go-to items in the passenger seat and cargo in the back were scattered throughout the car; the seatbelt held me safe. I landed on all four wheels and with the engine still running, got hauled out of the ditch to review my options. In the end and after my sister , the car was safe enough to drive. In the late morning the next day, </span><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I began the journey back to Boulder. &nbsp;&nbsp;The car was clean and empty, rising up the highway over Steamboat Pass. &nbsp;the radio played the song, “And when I die… there will be another child born to carry on” &nbsp; I cried to the music in the car. &nbsp;</span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vu7XWgczC7o/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vu7XWgczC7o?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The car radio punctuated a passionate moment when I was in High School as I kissed a boy in the front seat. The night was cool, it was steamy and passionate, the brush of whiskers and explorations of lips and skin, hands and hair. My knee hit the knob and the radio station blared, "Jesus died for your sins." We paused, giggled, and tried to carry on. The moment was changed then. He was Catholic. He dropped me at home shortly after. </span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In all the commentary of the campaign and the results of the election, I feel similarly to that moment in 1979 when the abrupt message came in over the radio waves. I am alternating among a desire to leave the country (one acquaintance has already),retreat into meditation and dedicate time to finding righteous employment, or find the right activism. In the meantime, I try to muster kindness for all. What other control do we have? The questions linger. How to do we have a constructive and meaningful dialog with those who hold different views? What is the way forward in achieving unity and agreement to advance our collective commitment to liberty and justice for all? How will this incredibly turbulent time change us, as people and as a nation? I am not sure the radio will have the answers, but it worth trying to tune in to learn more. </span></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-17229164985804873392016-10-23T05:55:00.000-07:002017-01-01T17:54:51.257-08:00Objects of Desire<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The people, clutching their items, approach my section of the long checkout counter in a rapid and dizzying succession. A knobbly cabled cotton cardigan is followed by a 7-pound pea coat. A cashmere hoody slinks in, soft and seductive, and jumps on the counter like a black cat. Shoe boxes shout their presence and succumb unwillingly to the paper bag at my feet. Rubber boot keychains, cookies shaped like totebags and lobster lollipops bob to the eddy of my shore as the river of customers flows by. On rainy days, the river runs strong. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://news.theforecaster.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/m-bean-bootmobile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://news.theforecaster.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/m-bean-bootmobile.jpg" height="206" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">www.theforecaster.net</td></tr></tbody></table></span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-2a9cfdfe-bde3-5ff0-ba23-71e82f854059" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm temporarily working in the capitalist machine of consumer goods, albeit a family business with a great reputation for quality and valuing their employees. The human personalities in the stream of customers are at times strong, I become more attached to the items that float by. &nbsp;“Wouldn’t it be nice to have that?” a small voice whispers as athletic pants appear on the counter before getting slipped into a paper bag. The want tugs gently at my shirtsleeve like a 3-year-old, pleading, "Buy this, accumulate that, build a fortress of clothing around you as the temperature dips to the frost point." &nbsp;Driving home close to midnight after my shift ended, the headlights illuminate the red and yellow leaves. </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">The full moon is high</span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> over the fallow fields </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">as I venture through the fog wisps. Like the chipmunk with full cheeks, I am thinking ahead to winter. </span></span><br /><div style="text-align: right;"></div></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.es-static.us/upl/2016/10/moon-hunters-10-15-2016-Monroe-Kurt-Zeppetello-e1476609404360.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://en.es-static.us/upl/2016/10/moon-hunters-10-15-2016-Monroe-Kurt-Zeppetello-e1476609404360.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://en.es-static.us/</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b> </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thus far, I am able to resist the purchase to buy brand new but still wrestle with the reality that I need to be outfitted with clothing for winter. There are finds at thrift stores and the employee store, I seek in waiting to accumulate objects that are sturdy, utilitarian,&nbsp;funky, and have some soul. </span></div><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But in fact, I miss the objects that have disappeared in years of moving around. The handmade knitting needle case that may have been misplaced in the roof of my vehicle and disappeared as a drove to the next destination. &nbsp;A custom crocheted knitting bag with stunning intricacy and care, traded for a handknit set of socks, hat, and mitts, that lost in the mail with a simple decision not to insure the box, &nbsp;My grandmother’s stainless steel bracelet, perhaps fallen from a pocket in the aftermath of an MRI on a still troublesome upper back and shoulder, was missed immediately yet not found anywhere at the hospital. The sea kayaking jacket that accompanied me on multiple expeditions, the ultimate defense against pouring rain, high winds, and cold temperatures, was given away in the frenetic days of the house sale. To where and whom it was given, I cannot remember. </span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span> <span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">If I knew these special items were destroyed in a fire, it would be easier to let them go. When I am settled and long to nest, these objects haunt me. The hungry ghosts arise in thoughts with regret, longing, and disappointment, I am remorseful over the past mistakes and carelessness that tossed them into an abyss of misplacement. One can only hope that there were adopted by another instead of lying in layers of garbage in a horrific landfill. </span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PYzFcBd8Bu8/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PYzFcBd8Bu8?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot;;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;">When the need strikes, I unpack the boxes looking for the things that were moved from the house. They are there, in all the joyful understatedness of packed away presence. As I find the places for them in my new home, I find that these things enrich my soul and give me joy. I am able to hear their stories.</span></span><br /><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EB9u4-LhUVM/WAyxoZkddYI/AAAAAAAAD1E/0hnbBTjhhvUSoJ-m0OCqkfzG56yXwfDtQCLcB/s1600/20161022_135229.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EB9u4-LhUVM/WAyxoZkddYI/AAAAAAAAD1E/0hnbBTjhhvUSoJ-m0OCqkfzG56yXwfDtQCLcB/s320/20161022_135229.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On a way home from a late season<br />trip many years ago and with tips <br />burning in my pocket, I went through Denali<br />National Park's gateway village and saw<br />a sale sign. &nbsp;I pulled over, saw this piece and<br />fell in love. It arrived in Maine a little<br />broken and bent, but a local artist was<br />able to fix it.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: &quot;trebuchet ms&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-72204566074831366632016-09-24T04:58:00.000-07:002017-01-01T17:54:25.282-08:00My Alaskan Bachelor Party It was a "last-chance&nbsp;before the snow&nbsp;falls" pilgrimage back to a beloved land, culture, and people. The primary mission to see old friends and bring back my belongings. In the final hour of the 9 hours of flights from Maine. I lifted the window, high-fived my forethought and appreciated the clear skies as the sun stretched its legs in the waning autumn evening.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1T5lp-tuh6s/V-Era6_8RPI/AAAAAAAADow/tjEjQMvYG187cYMDmb_F3rLufJfkWFDTACEw/s1600/plane.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1T5lp-tuh6s/V-Era6_8RPI/AAAAAAAADow/tjEjQMvYG187cYMDmb_F3rLufJfkWFDTACEw/s320/plane.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The Lost Coast of Alaska, &nbsp;the northern coastline of the longest contiguous stretch&nbsp;of wilderness in the world,was studded by glaciers and mountains below. &nbsp;I'd guided many trips in two glacier-filled bays along this coast in the mid-90s. It was a sheer, raw,dynamic &nbsp;and powerful place where I felt such a deep hue of humility and awe that I felt some of my ashes should be spread there after my final days. The plane flew farther north to Valdez, then over the mountains and following the highway into Anchorage.<br /><br />Over the next ten days, I awoke during a mild earthquake at 3am, saw moose and calves in Anchorage's parks, watched for belugas amid the glittery outgoing tide of Turnagain Arm, walked long and hard, reunited with some objects some of which were&nbsp;reassuring and others pointless, went to a pop-up street art festival, drove a manual transmission, and listened to my favorite radio station. &nbsp;My host and Southeast Asia travel companion fulfilled my hope and offered to drive on a road trip out to the edge of the biggest National Park in the US, which is only accessible by air or a 60-mile gravel road.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-auB1SSfm0t4/V-ErjSH02HI/AAAAAAAADo8/XWc0Juw0JNEV9970bWkabrVgLfr0EVWLgCEw/s1600/road%2Btrip1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-auB1SSfm0t4/V-ErjSH02HI/AAAAAAAADo8/XWc0Juw0JNEV9970bWkabrVgLfr0EVWLgCEw/s320/road%2Btrip1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the road east. Frost heaves not shown.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The highway stretched through expanses of golden birch and aspen punctuated by distant views of some of the highest mountains in North America. I reunited with a friend and homesteader, who I hosted for a few winters at my house in Spenard, and moved into a sweet little cabin for the weekend. &nbsp;We drove into town with Mark on Friday night for some local culture and aurora's magic glowing green waves rippled in the sky.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NINb80MVQm8/V-EpU8zgs-I/AAAAAAAADoY/mVuc63DfIcovD81axE7zgRLOnS-5ZsvPwCLcB/s1600/DSC01339.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NINb80MVQm8/V-EpU8zgs-I/AAAAAAAADoY/mVuc63DfIcovD81axE7zgRLOnS-5ZsvPwCLcB/s320/DSC01339.JPG" width="213" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aurora at Fireweed Mountain.<br />Photo by Mark Vail.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><br />One our way into town the next day, heading up to the Kennecott mine for our hike, the memories of my first autumn in Alaska drifted in. &nbsp;I'd gone out alone in my 1984 Landcruiser wagon for an end of season trip to visit my friend Tim. I'd just started a new job coordinating an eco-tourism trade association in Valdez. On the long gravel road that was the old railroad bed, I'd gotten a flat tire and changed it myself. My friend was guiding trips and the operations were based out of a shipping container in the gravel beds on the riverside. The airstrip was on the other side of the river in the old miner's community. &nbsp;Ar the time, the only way across the rushing and icy glacial river was to pull yourself over on a hand-tram that swayed above a rocky, rushing, glacier-fueled river. Tim and his fellow guides shuttled their gear across each day &nbsp;I watched the owner heat his bathing water with a small, twiggy fire in a tiny, cylindrical stove.<br /><br />Years later, on this crisp fall morning, we set out and hiked up-- 1,000 feet of elevation per mile--saw bears grazing on the hillside, more mountains stretching on forever, &nbsp;and returned home to make a simple dinner and sleep well.<br /><br />There were other nights in cabins in this beautiful valley. In the late days of 2008, I was the beginning of a new stage of work and feeling frayed by the previous job. I rode in with a couple of&nbsp;with a couple of gal friends who also had cabins in the area. The truck was loaded with tire chains and a chainsaw, There was a cold snap of well below zero degrees. &nbsp;My homesteader friend met me at the trailhead at the road and I was happy to ski with my backpack. I was staying in the cabin couple that rented a room in my house during a winter they lived in this special foothills area of Fireweed mountain a few years earlier.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LQIFW4ZD7IE/V-Eri2nCv8I/AAAAAAAADo0/ln__1WvFm5QZBbvDckk9UybTjHFlPu3ygCEw/s1600/bonanza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LQIFW4ZD7IE/V-Eri2nCv8I/AAAAAAAADo0/ln__1WvFm5QZBbvDckk9UybTjHFlPu3ygCEw/s320/bonanza.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bonanza Mine on the horizon.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>The outgoing breath billowed to leave frost on my eyelashes and breathing in froze nose hairs. &nbsp;Over the next few days, I explored the area with Mark, read and wrote, and split wood in the noon light. The big spruce logs cracked apart in the deep still cold. I hauled in and restocked and melted snow for water. That night, drifting down to 30 below, the night percolated along nicely. It was time to buff up the stove before bed.<br /><br />The gnarled piece was problematic to split even in the deep cold of the Alaskan interior. A knot entangled at the base. It barely fit in the barrel of the stove. Hot and fierce action erupted as the heady flow of oxygen was sucked in. The accelerator was floored in this race to complete destruction. &nbsp;The stovepipe glowed red. &nbsp;If this went bad it would be a disparaged legacy, a reputation gone awry, a horrible act of negligence and a grievance that one lifetime couldn't heal. Perhaps only a minute passed in frantic poking and prodding, but then the load shifted. The stove door shut and I exhaled and tempered the damper. Everything was settled into a slow burn. &nbsp;I was happy to see the morning.<br /><br />Now back in Maine, the fatigue of the redeye flight has subsided. The fiery passion of getting set up in Maine has now settled into a merry warmth on a bed of settled coals. <a href="http://ellenmaling.blogspot.com/2011/07/hasta-luego-casa-del-fuego.html" target="_blank">The fire embers I spoke of back in 2011</a> are igniting. The 9 boxes of books, journals, antique kitchen tools, and small arty objects of importance and joy will arrive before September's end.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EJj179OvWOo/V-ErjIVSfPI/AAAAAAAADo4/34pRrx6VGCgICw4pTgsltY_2NhaF31E5wCEw/s1600/stuff.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EJj179OvWOo/V-ErjIVSfPI/AAAAAAAADo4/34pRrx6VGCgICw4pTgsltY_2NhaF31E5wCEw/s320/stuff.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 250 pounds of stuff sent back in the mail.<br />25% of it was the boxes of journals.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />While I will likely never work as a guide again, &nbsp;I now have the outdoor gear I need to explore Maine's vast wild places. On the departure evening at the airport, &nbsp;I hefted the utilitarian duffle bag from my guiding days onto the scale. I'd carefully packed with my outdoor gear: tent, life jacket, sleeping bag, hiking boots, small tarp anI stove. It weighed in at 49.5 pounds, 8 ounces shy of the overweight limit. "Nicely done.", the Alaska Airlines agent commented as it moved away on the conveyer belt. "Yes!", my brain high-fived itself, "Haven't lost the mojo."<br /><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wqt5864945U/V-UiKuMRXxI/AAAAAAAADqU/2R26QxjBO2svdxzfnFu_FgN-HmkX9GSbACLcB/s1600/magnets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wqt5864945U/V-UiKuMRXxI/AAAAAAAADqU/2R26QxjBO2svdxzfnFu_FgN-HmkX9GSbACLcB/s400/magnets.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The small joys of seeing old refrigerator magnets from the house.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-71918629818605471682016-08-20T05:58:00.001-07:002017-01-01T17:53:29.916-08:00Work Ethics<div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">I thought it would be over by now. &nbsp;I thought that within <a href="http://ellenmaling.blogspot.com/2012/01/100-days-in-thailand.html" target="_blank">100 days </a>I would have had a job offer and have started the process of building my income again. The deadline has come and gone: a relay baton not passed or a left-hand turn in the car passed too quickly. My life passed by with both a blink of an eye with time both inexorably slow at the same time.&nbsp;</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">In recent weeks, the void of paid work in my life has been a lingering dissonance, like the empty patch in the garden from a large plant that I relocated a few weeks ago or the annoyance of a typographical error on the sign near the cashier. &nbsp;Characteristically, I am keeping busy attending to life details, getting out and about in wild places, conversing with a network about who I am and what I want to do, and undertaking &nbsp;projects with a couple of groups that were close to my heart and were happy to have a seasoned consultant offer free services for a limited period of time. &nbsp;My New England work ethic has always defined my character by what I do, but here in America your professional job typically provides you with other benefits- health insurance and sometimes an ability to invest tax-free. <br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://image.slidesharecdn.com/theorylecturemaxweber-111107121524-phpapp02/95/max-weber-4-728.jpg?cb=1320668184" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://image.slidesharecdn.com/theorylecturemaxweber-111107121524-phpapp02/95/max-weber-4-728.jpg?cb=1320668184" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://image.slidesharecdn.com/Max Weber&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><br />At this 100 day milestone, I am facing the need to refill those critical medicines I need to survive. I'm not clear of those costs and with a $5,000 deductible looming ahead for the next three months, all expenses are mine to bear. Fortunately, &nbsp;I am receiving a low-income subsidy for the monthly premiums and I have virtually no living expenses while staying with my parents. I am grateful for that. &nbsp;While I have grown to accept many of the <a href="http://ellenmaling.blogspot.com/2011/08/retrograde.html" target="_blank">facts about managing my diabetes</a>, it pales to the reality of my grandfather.&nbsp;</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">I had an opportunity recently to read my uncle's family history about my father's father, George. &nbsp;My grandfather was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as a young adult just after insulin was discovered in 1922. &nbsp;He lost his job during the Great Depression and went to the library to hide the fact that he was unemployed. George found a job working with a steamship company in Boston, but he could never reveal that he lived with diabetes. He could never buy life insurance for his family. He never went out to dinner with friends or colleagues, in fact eating the exact same food each day: oatmeal for breakfast, ratatouille for lunch and meat and vegetables for dinner. &nbsp;He was so scarred by the Great Depression that they never bought a house and he saved all of his money in Swiss bank accounts-- a secret kept from his wife until he passed.&nbsp;</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">Today, I often cycle past the 2 apartments where my grandparents lived in Brunswick (they were displaced twice by Bowdoin College's student housing expansions.) &nbsp;My father's great-grandfather was born in Nova Scotia and started logging in Brewer Maine at 16. At 22, founded one of Maines's larger lumber companies, which harvested vast tracts of timber and floated them down the Penobscot River to the waiting ships that clustered in the bay to transport to market. &nbsp;The family has always worked hard.&nbsp;</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://genejourneys.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/wm-h-maling-gravestone-001.jpg?w=490&amp;h=686" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://genejourneys.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/wm-h-maling-gravestone-001.jpg?w=490&amp;h=686" width="228" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the Oak Hill Cemetary in Brewer Maine.<br />Photo credit Bill Maling.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><div dir="ltr">I finally buckled down and applied for a seasonal, temporary job at a major outdoor retailer a few weeks ago. &nbsp;</div><div dir="ltr"><br />&nbsp;"Have you ever worked on a factory line or around heavy machinery?", the interviewer asked. &nbsp;This question came just&nbsp;a&nbsp;day &nbsp;after a search committee for a senior level position asked about my project management skills, to which I replied, "Plate Spinning" and the interview team erupted in laughter. &nbsp; But here I was in a cubicle with the interviewer typing into an online form while listening to my responses.&nbsp;</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div dir="ltr">"Yes.I have", I replied. &nbsp;The factory was my first job after my freshman year of college. It was the first time that I met someone who had lost most of her teeth. Her think hair was pinned on a small bun atop of her head. She told me about her love flower over the clatter and dusty of the machines that spit out sheets with tiny glue squares, upon which we glued a petit four of small fabric squares. The country radio station played, "I'd rather be lonely without you than a fool by your side." &nbsp;I realized the power of being born into the middle&nbsp;class and the power of health insurance.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sLps0ox9UxM/TRjfthQ0dwI/AAAAAAAABC4/C_iv1iJzcm4/s1600/weaver+bird.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sLps0ox9UxM/TRjfthQ0dwI/AAAAAAAABC4/C_iv1iJzcm4/s1600/weaver+bird.JPG" width="258" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weaver Bird and Nest <br />http://4.bp.blogspot.com/</td></tr></tbody></table>These days, &nbsp;I am spending some of my days a the library. The full-time job search has thus far been &nbsp;unsuccessful. &nbsp;10 closely-targeted senior management level CV submissions and three interviews later, my internal dialog is beginning again about my uneasy relationship with office work.&nbsp;How to be a creative freelancer with the Ball and Chain of healthcare costs?&nbsp;This is a recurrent refrain from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jLUDSC1p2k" target="_blank">opening number in my performance art piece in 2010.</a><br /><br />I am so grateful to have this unique position. &nbsp;As long as I can manage to wrestle the internal doubts and idiosyncrasies of living with my parents, this is a great place to stay. There are minimal financial obligations. I have savings after years of living on the very cheap. &nbsp;Last week when I refilled the prescriptions, it was a huge relief- Obamacare is working for me. &nbsp;I think I can pursue a creative path.<br /><br />This process of forming relationships, establishing structure and creating a new life will take longer. &nbsp;I can feel the webs forming, the tensile threads of connections, a glistening and resilient&nbsp;network that forms community&nbsp;and work connections. &nbsp;I am building a nest, gathering threads, knitting together small balls of yarn to create the blanket of this new life. &nbsp;</div><div dir="ltr"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/fa/0f/aa/fa0faaf8278c5fa132e05926cc9c36d6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/fa/0f/aa/fa0faaf8278c5fa132e05926cc9c36d6.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><br /></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-73261558388749921802016-07-26T13:03:00.003-07:002017-01-01T17:51:31.361-08:00Settling In<div class="MsoNormal">Over the past few weeks, the storm &nbsp;of searching for work in Boston has settled and the sky in Maine has remained blue for days on end. &nbsp;I felt relieved by this decision made for me. &nbsp;On my interview trips to the big city, &nbsp;I witnessed a lot ofthe&nbsp;everyday trauma. It reminded me of my first job in Boston&nbsp;when I worked &nbsp;second-shift street outreach with homeless and&nbsp;runaway youth. The screech, grime, and neglect of the MBTA were too familiar. The streets and buildings were spiffed up and more glamorous than before, but the people still rattling their paper cups for spare change on many corners had not changed in the 30 years since I had worked there. &nbsp;<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Now refocused, my days meld together with a daily list of the projects and tasks inherent in making a &nbsp;life in the rural north. &nbsp;I am doing a couple of pro-bono contracts with nonprofit groups to build relationships and keep my head in the game.&nbsp; There are stimulating conversations, enthusiastic cover letters, a new love-affair with Cross Fit, and more projects in the garden.&nbsp; I am reveling in the simple pleasures of reading newsprint and magazines, feeling the cool air of an incoming storm, and checking off the hikes on the Southern Mid-Coast Summer Trail Challenge. <o:p></o:p><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4xd1jPRyk5U/V5e9gz0tM_I/AAAAAAAADkc/aYq9hP_gS1IPD9QvpVRNGrq-Yasm3fFUACLcB/s1600/20160720_161718_resized_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; line-height: 18.2px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4xd1jPRyk5U/V5e9gz0tM_I/AAAAAAAADkc/aYq9hP_gS1IPD9QvpVRNGrq-Yasm3fFUACLcB/s320/20160720_161718_resized_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The myriad of places one can go are pretty staggering.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Current events over the past weeks of July--not only the horrific domestic terrorism incidents but also the damning report on the Cambodian Prime Minister’s riches followed by the suspicious assassination of a beloved political activist with a Ph.D.-- has made me look more closely at the culture and customs of this new home.&nbsp; There are differences and similarities. The ubiquitous motos in Cambodia with the large people on loud and enormous motorcycles with optional helmets. &nbsp;It is not uncommon to see bareheaded riders zooming past my car on the highway, engines rumbling deeply in throaty power. Do the helmetless riders have children? &nbsp;I wonder.&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;Unlike Cambodia’s largely young population, Maine has an average age of 43.5, the oldest in the nation. I now have a new appreciation for what it takes to age well. &nbsp;In a semblance of democracy, the current governor was elected by only 38% of Maine residents in 2014 for a second term, due in part to the technical details of having more than 2 candidates on the ballot. There are thousands of miles of legally protected land conserved by &nbsp;multitudes of local Land Trust organizations who have members that pay dues and help with maintaining the trails. &nbsp;Like Cambodia, the government does not agree with protection. In recent months, Govenor LePage wrote a strongly worded letter on the State of Maine letterhead to donors of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, lambasting them for impeding economic development because of "locking it up"- a refrain familiar from Alaska.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZgUV7ixUG_o/V5e0-umx8-I/AAAAAAAADkE/4J0P-2X8KDQyDhuNGP8tkIASeysSYpotACEw/s1600/20160713_143136_resized.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZgUV7ixUG_o/V5e0-umx8-I/AAAAAAAADkE/4J0P-2X8KDQyDhuNGP8tkIASeysSYpotACEw/s320/20160713_143136_resized.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view from Eagle Island to Casco Bay at low tide.</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />The shopping centers in Maine are asphalt deserts, with large islands of air-conditioned oases where everything is neat and the staff wait patiently at the registers. There are only a few opportunities to buy direct from a single merchant, except on Maine Street. &nbsp;I miss cycling to Central market and stepping through the goo in the wet market section, but not the expat markup. America's imperfections are showing their heads in this rural state of Maine, with the highest rate of prescription opiate addiction in the nation (CDC), and the percentage of students who graduate with a Bachelors degree is slightly below the national average. &nbsp;People here drive very long distances for work. See this <a href="http://bigbytes.mobyus.com/commute.aspx?County=5&amp;State=23&amp;MinMiles=20&amp;MaxMiles=100&amp;MaxCoV=0.8&amp;CountyType=home" target="_blank">great link</a> for the image.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">I applied for a part-time (keep 'er busy) job last week and as I hit the submit button I could feel the vestiges of my work experience in Cambodia drifting away. That period of my life now distant on the horizon, buffeted by the winds of change and the choices. &nbsp;Each day, I am reminded of the transience of this one life we have to live. &nbsp;Just last week I'd just finished fueling the car when I saw an older gentleman waving me over.<br /><br />"Could you go in and find someone to pump my gas for me?" &nbsp;He looked at me kindly. &nbsp;His tissue paper hands, discolored by age spots, held the steering wheel. His cane was propped up on the seat next to him, and his back supported by a ventilating seat cover behind the wheel of a newish Subaru wagon. &nbsp;I hesitated for only a second and said, "No problem. I can do this for you." &nbsp;He handed me his L.L. Bean credit card and as I watched the gasoline meter tick away. I was struck by the risk management inherent in being an old person alone and to have the courage and humility to ask for help from a complete stranger. He only needed a few gallons.<br /><br />The next day, I went out on a work trip to Admiral Peary's summer house, just off the coast south of Brunswick. I was the youngest volunteer there.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/09/11/article-0-0DD5845400000578-308_634x393.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/09/11/article-0-0DD5845400000578-308_634x393.jpg" height="198" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2px;">From the 1985 Arctic Explorers series</span>&nbsp;</span></td></tr></tbody></table>Peary was a difficult, driven guy but depended on the people close to him- his trusted associate Matthew Henson, his wife Josephine who traveled to arctic while pregnant and birthed the first caucasian baby in northern Greenland and their cook, who worked for them for 50 years. Peary's explorations were all based on Inuit survival tactics with a strong backbone of resilience and resourcefulness.<br /><br />Peary's personal credo:&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.2px;">Inveniam Viam Aut Facium</span>&nbsp;“ I will find a way or make one.”&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 18.2px;">This next phase to search for my next</span><span style="line-height: 18.2px;">&nbsp;</span>livelihood<span style="line-height: 18.2px;">, however long it will take, will involve surveying the scene, building my community and readying for whatever unfolds next. &nbsp;</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="line-height: 18.2px;"><br /></span></div></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-55684114279879782112016-06-23T17:42:00.000-07:002017-01-01T17:50:06.901-08:00The Gate That is Always Unlocked<div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.doyletics.com/images/85rpeale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.doyletics.com/images/85rpeale.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ruth Stafford Peale was married to<br />Norman, her famous husband. She died<br />in 2008 at the age of 102.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>About a month ago, I crept up to the gate of the Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust's Community Garden on my bike, lost my balance and slowly tipped over on the soft grass. The handlebar wedged into the top part of my bra. I jumped up in a quick recovery, and looked around to see if anyone saw the mishap. After I determined was safe from scrutiny, &nbsp;I walked the bike in and took a look around. Moments later, I was fortunate to meet Ms.Corie, the cheerful volunteer coordinator who gave me a brochure with an email address. A few days later, I was back to pull weeds when it was discovered that corn maggots had eaten all the pea and that a weed-choked garden of perennials needed attention.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p><br /><div style="text-align: right;"></div>The phrase "Find a need and fill it.” has been credited to&nbsp;<a href="http://whartonmagazine.com/blogs/fanafi-why-entrepreneurs-should-find-a-need-and-fill-it/">Ruth Stafford Peale</a>, <a href="http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-find-a-need-and-fill-it-find-a-hurt-and-heal-it-tommy-barnett-82-22-79.jpg">Pastor Tommy Barnett</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jack-nadel/best-career-advice-find-a_b_7103754.html">Henry Kaiser</a>. And so I have set to work over recent weeks. &nbsp;Wheelbarrows of weeds got dumped into the pit, the flowers in the garden were uncovered and transplanted in beds of rich compost. I hauled rocks to create borders and woodchips to make paths. From a mishmash of neglect, I tended until a garden emerged.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />Unlike my prolific perennial gardens at my house in Anchorage, this place will always be in community ownership. As long as I will come to Brunswick to see my parents, I can take a short jaunt across the street, past a small patch of rare lady slipper orchids tucked away in a small patch of forest, and head over to the gate that is always unlocked.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gwU1QoKRJrc/V2vXvtLp_gI/AAAAAAAADi8/pphiDbW-GbAVGihLhyGD-iXV8VKOpbAbACLcB/s1600/20160613_152207%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gwU1QoKRJrc/V2vXvtLp_gI/AAAAAAAADi8/pphiDbW-GbAVGihLhyGD-iXV8VKOpbAbACLcB/s320/20160613_152207%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The compost bins with some flowers from a personal plot.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">The garden grows produce for the local food bank, while also hosting about 60 10x10 community plots nurtured by the people who rent them for the summer. &nbsp;There’s plenty of tools in the shed, and compost. mulch and chips for the loose soil, now in its 4th summer of production. It's all organic, rich and teeming with spiders, worms, ladybugs, an occasional spotted salamander and other beneficials.<br /><br />&nbsp;When the sun shines, I can run a hose for watering, fill up the watering can from the tank or the crop volunteers can water the seedlings with drip irrigation-- all water pumped with solar energy. &nbsp;There has been thought and investment in the land: the good spirit exudes. Birds flit about constantly.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ElR-7Rrq18I/V2vOLoG9HVI/AAAAAAAADiI/qVkqZhClRHY6yuDRAhHSxx7fK6L9KhdJQCLcB/s1600/20160613_145147%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ElR-7Rrq18I/V2vOLoG9HVI/AAAAAAAADiI/qVkqZhClRHY6yuDRAhHSxx7fK6L9KhdJQCLcB/s320/20160613_145147%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Recently planted squash with a perennial bed in the foreground.<br />One of the 2 water tanks is in the background. &nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><br />This garden is the tangible manifestation of community,abundance, and of ripening potential.&nbsp;After a long winter, all of the&nbsp;resolute perennials emerge, fresh shoots coming up from the brown shells of last year's growth.&nbsp;The day lilies' buds form in the early summer, still wrapped in their fresh green sheets, while he Forget-Me-Nots have already gone to seed to set the foundation for future blooms. The perennial plant's low maintenance&nbsp;determination emerges to greet the sun and form the infrastructure for another summer of growth and beauty.<br /><br />I'm deeply connected to the soil through all the physical process: crouching on hands and knees, invading into the base of a tap root with a tool and prying, or tugging persistently on an&nbsp;overgrown set of root bundles, and learning deep into the shovel around a plant that needed moving. There is another deep, nearly reverential bliss that comes from the process of moving about on land. My small terrace garden in Phnom Penh was a giggle compared to the robust belly laugh that my body experiences in this space.<br /><br /><span style="text-align: center;">The garden surrounded by open grass fields, then the stands of tall pines that form a barrier to the larger organic farm that is also part of the Land Trust holdings. &nbsp;The Common Good gardens, particularly the perennial beds, are the result of many individual efforts over the past four years since the Community Garden was started. The flowers needed a little attention, another push to keep the momentum going</span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yGcmxstJwA0/V2vN-Z7kk_I/AAAAAAAADh4/4tNhPIuZ880NBW8fubPrV7VCXIjDX_MIgCLcB/s1600/20160613_152503%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yGcmxstJwA0/V2vN-Z7kk_I/AAAAAAAADh4/4tNhPIuZ880NBW8fubPrV7VCXIjDX_MIgCLcB/s320/20160613_152503%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The weed pit with a few of the past year's pits now<br />covered. It's a good idea to let the bad stuff get buried</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5YJ0ZWcA55U/V2vORN-IWgI/AAAAAAAADiQ/9ftjlE6gGSIMu2dk03EutAWqdn48o1a8QCLcB/s1600/20160622_134410%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5YJ0ZWcA55U/V2vORN-IWgI/AAAAAAAADiQ/9ftjlE6gGSIMu2dk03EutAWqdn48o1a8QCLcB/s320/20160622_134410%255B1%255D.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The "back 40 bed" that I just started<br />on yesterday was also quite overgrown</td></tr></tbody></table>Over the past month of earnest effort, I have now adopted the plants and the space. The plots have not only been an anchor in a long series of days filled with optimism and fear for whatever unknown future emerges, but also a terrific reason to be outside. No one asks why you are standing out in the middle of a garden looking at the clouds whisk across the fresh blue sky. &nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">In these recent days, I have been waiting more eagerly on a decision that will determine the next step of my professional life. I find myself struggling with restlessness, caught now in a patch of doldrums waiting for a breeze to form. &nbsp;In the meantime, I go back to the earth,filled with gratitude for a peaceful, healthy space and something to do.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lfGPWVn8G4E/V2vXi9NftEI/AAAAAAAADi0/dGyYhnpNQqgiypig6udnYxGK1PLjTOvkwCLcB/s1600/20160613_152431%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lfGPWVn8G4E/V2vXi9NftEI/AAAAAAAADi0/dGyYhnpNQqgiypig6udnYxGK1PLjTOvkwCLcB/s320/20160613_152431%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The end of the first phase of work for this garden.<br />Lots of hours here!&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-22101105568943277212016-05-21T05:03:00.002-07:002017-01-01T17:56:53.029-08:00Project Repatriation<div class="MsoNormal">“Try using horsefood62,” Mum said. &nbsp;Logging into the household wifi network was not working. That led me, less than 10 hours after arriving in the US for the next stage of my life,&nbsp;lying on the floor under my father’s desk trying to read the tiny letters on the modem while on the phone with customer service. &nbsp;Moments later at 5pm, the phone disconnected and I realized it was probably time to have a drink, eat dinner and go to bed.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yBxf0_RXXj0/Vz9vzTgLUjI/AAAAAAAADgg/9u2U7pZjJdAZWUCK3bRNhhLWExjjNKzhgCKgB/s1600/20160513_181359%255B1%255D.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yBxf0_RXXj0/Vz9vzTgLUjI/AAAAAAAADgg/9u2U7pZjJdAZWUCK3bRNhhLWExjjNKzhgCKgB/s320/20160513_181359%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lists upon lists.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Project Repatriation, not unlike Project Runway or Masterchef, &nbsp;is a limited time process to set up the infrastructure of life in a new country. &nbsp;In the early stages, it is complex and daunting, confused by jetlag and overall disorientation.<br /><br />&nbsp;I gave myself two weeks to get sorted out on multiple fronts: the business of life (phone, bank account,car, heavier clothing and new electronic identities), establishing healthcare (dental evaluation, Obamacare), learning to live with my parents, and staging for a new job (updating CV, Linked In, preparing networking lists and compiling a wardrobe).<br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-btC4qQiPfps/Vz9wCJm75cI/AAAAAAAADgs/RXuYS_5RbmE6AeJrrPWTF5L80OuJzB6fQCKgB/s1600/20160516_185058%255B1%255D.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-btC4qQiPfps/Vz9wCJm75cI/AAAAAAAADgs/RXuYS_5RbmE6AeJrrPWTF5L80OuJzB6fQCKgB/s320/20160516_185058%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Call it good or look for a whiter jacket?</td></tr></tbody></table>I hate shopping. I rifle through the racks of clothing in the stores and malls, milling next to women who are shopping for fun, not determination. Seeing the range of countries from which these clothes are made, I am haunted by memories of young people in cattle trucks leaving their shift at the garment factories in Cambodia as the sunset red with dust. Within the pressure-driven environment to buy everything from socks to jackets, I really want to stay focused on simplicity.&nbsp; I dusted off the fashion assessment that was done when I finished graduate school and decided to focus on establishing a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/capsule-wardrobe-experiment-2016-4" target="_blank">capsule wardrobe</a>. The concept,30-40 &nbsp;pieces that comprise your entire wardrobe for a season, provided structure to guide the process.<br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kk-WMn2BDII/Vz9vnnvItcI/AAAAAAAADgw/ia7Dfh8ctscBG8zxX18RIjqpeqsXK6lYgCKgB/s1600/20160515_061207%255B1%255D.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Kk-WMn2BDII/Vz9vnnvItcI/AAAAAAAADgw/ia7Dfh8ctscBG8zxX18RIjqpeqsXK6lYgCKgB/s320/20160515_061207%255B1%255D.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a fan. I liked the concept<br />of a Chia Pet better.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>There are so many options here in America. In the early days of my arrival, I stood in front of a cracker display and was stunned into paralysis. New items and trends that have evolved since I left. &nbsp;I am internally aghast at the kinds of foods in people's carts: huge bags of chips, bulbous containers of sugared soda, strange colors in food. &nbsp;The items on the shelves in&nbsp;the supermarkets here seem more boisterous and crowded than the ones I went to during my holiday in Australia. Certainly no comparison to the beleaguered&nbsp;items in my neighborhood supermarkets in Phnom Penh.<br /><br />Indeed, the customer service experience contrasts with the practices in Southeast Asia. &nbsp;Just yesterday, I was on the lookout for a device to transfer the 577 photos on the camera's storage card to my computer. I ventured around Staples (an office supply chain) and didn't see what I needed, so I headed out the door. "Can I help you find something?", the cashier said. "Sure..I'm looking for blah blah." She escorts me to the appropriate aisle and I absorb the inventory for a few seconds. &nbsp;She radios her supervisor to help. &nbsp;As I balk on the price of the coveted item, &nbsp;the supervisor he checks the price on his device and offers me an 85% discount on the retail per the store's policy of an 110% &nbsp;price match guarantee. Feeling my commitment to anti-consumerism wane, I buy it.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TAAO_2vZxzA/Vz9vip7qadI/AAAAAAAADgw/uzZBB_I0tl8naqbu1e4ROIDwGS3bxtIZgCKgB/s1600/20160514_135009%255B1%255D.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TAAO_2vZxzA/Vz9vip7qadI/AAAAAAAADgw/uzZBB_I0tl8naqbu1e4ROIDwGS3bxtIZgCKgB/s320/20160514_135009%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oh, come on.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>The streets and character of Brunswick,Maine are a refreshing and start contrast to my past environs. The buildings are historic, well-loved and stately. &nbsp;I remain giggly and giddy when traffic stops as I approach &nbsp;the zebra-striped crossing zones on the street. There are bike lanes and the law requires 3-foot distance between car and bike. &nbsp;Mum's 30-year-old bike has 18 speeds and I had to learn how to shift gears again. The last bit of belongings from Cambodia arrived this week, carrying my helmet that I first bought in Alaska.<br />The squawking of the murder of crows in the towering pines in the neighborhood here reminds me of the swirling ravens that rode the thermals over the electric plant in Anchorage. On an early morning car trip to visit with my sister and our cousin and husband in southern Maine, I counted the bodies of 8 small,woodland creatures on the roadway, picked off as they tried to navigate the highway. Also<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xZoBmXhWVok/Vz9v7JwUi_I/AAAAAAAADg0/mK7rAEnLIz4N-F6yi95CN1FnSB7nsZEuACKgB/s1600/20160513_095134%255B1%255D.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xZoBmXhWVok/Vz9v7JwUi_I/AAAAAAAADg0/mK7rAEnLIz4N-F6yi95CN1FnSB7nsZEuACKgB/s320/20160513_095134%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Installation at the Curtis Memorial Library.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I drove my parents to the airport last week for their overnight trip to DC. There was a moment when we could have been surrounded by semi trucks&nbsp;zooming along in unison at 70 mph; our collective anxiety swelled in their force and absolute power. After a few days of watching my rear view mirror and seeing more than one person gesture in frustration, I have finally gotten oriented to driving in the US. That yield-on-green light thing was tricky.<br /><br />Here we are, my two-week benchmark and I feel like I am beginning to get sorted out. It had ups and downs, but overall it was remarkably easy. &nbsp;I am reminded of the onset of life in Phnom Penh, where I secured a modest, cheap apartment in 2 weeks and a contract job in the month following.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j6RqfUcGTXE/Vz9vdIxpwJI/AAAAAAAADgo/UONPmg9FoKEhx0GVL-lL90xmHuVez7XtgCKgB/s1600/20160520_145627%255B1%255D.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j6RqfUcGTXE/Vz9vdIxpwJI/AAAAAAAADgo/UONPmg9FoKEhx0GVL-lL90xmHuVez7XtgCKgB/s320/20160520_145627%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Got mum's Schwinn tricked out and then found a sweet deal:<br />a 2010 Forester with only&nbsp;26,134 miles on it. It may be a<br />bit big, but it will be a solid ride for Maine winters.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The psychological concept of "Flow" --a principle articulated by <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=en" target="_blank">Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi</a>'s TED talk-- seems evident in this decision to return to America and be closer to my family. &nbsp;Material elements have effortlessly unfolded. I take satisfaction in helping with the small chores, am absolutely grateful for the privacy and efficacy of my "penthouse"-- the upper-level level studio in my folk's townhouse. There will be strong challenges ahead, but at this moment I am creating a firm foundation for growth.<br /><br />Now, the last part is finding the "right livelihood" to sustain me economically, and some friends. There are promising developments unfolding on both fronts. I am optimistic. While there are (and always will be) some anxious moments, in this first blush of repatriation I am sailing on sensations of greater forces, generating positive energy, making new connections and of being receptive to wherever this path will lead. So grateful for all the riches and comforts.<br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WwWxIwVYXlI/Vz9t5XgvhFI/AAAAAAAADgI/MT7lNzDitkUle4aFeVodGZBFEs5Uuu2GQCLcB/s1600/The%2Bindicators%2Bof%2Bflow.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WwWxIwVYXlI/Vz9t5XgvhFI/AAAAAAAADgI/MT7lNzDitkUle4aFeVodGZBFEs5Uuu2GQCLcB/s400/The%2Bindicators%2Bof%2Bflow.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">From&nbsp;<a href="http://lateralaction.com/articles/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi/" style="color: #660099; cursor: pointer; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi</a>'s TED talk, linked above.&nbsp;</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /></div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-79922010393494292192016-04-30T18:20:00.000-07:002017-01-01T07:02:51.108-08:00The Long Journey Home <div dir="ltr">The skies opened with a torrent of rain and I was free. Cleansed in the patter rigorous patter of rain drops and clothed in swimmers and a brim hat, I stood on the shores of the Coral Sea and watched the tourists scurry to the respite of fan palms. There, under the full pummel of the brief shower, &nbsp;I felt all the worries and travails of the past five years slip away. &nbsp; I'd had the most awesome day already-- buffed by the swells of the ocean while snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef and just steps away from the oldest rainforest on earth.</div><div dir="ltr"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nhEICyAffeQ/VyVDGs5NCfI/AAAAAAAADTM/IXm7qJOqE9k/s1600/20160421_163544.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nhEICyAffeQ/VyVDGs5NCfI/AAAAAAAADTM/IXm7qJOqE9k/s320/20160421_163544.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />However, thoughts passed over the young woman I'd met first thing in the morning as we were waiting for the pickup for our snorkel trip. &nbsp;When she was given an extra thick wetsuit and I noticed her changing that the pronounced, fragile, malnutrition was revealed. The girl, traveling by herself, with ankles the size of my wrist spend the latter part of our snorkel trip hunkered, shivering, &nbsp;into the skipper's warm jacket as the boat ebbed and swayed on the Outer Reef. I offered her some of my calories and she declined. She seemed frail, yet determined. But something was a little off.<br /><br /></div><div dir="ltr">Her physical condition mirrored my own travails with my teeth that I'd suffered in the latter days of my time at the Red Centre. &nbsp;For then, ominously I noticed a swollen and painful lump next to my new implant. &nbsp;I flashed back to the days when I was freewheeling in the US, the months after I'd left an intense experienced working as a street outreach counselor to youth , in downtown Boston. Thanks to &nbsp;diabetes, questionable childhood dental braces, overeager Tufts dental students and negligent periodontal follow-up, I'd had that same symptom in 1991 and then lost my four front teeth.<br /><br /></div><div dir="ltr"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7o7bUpnBJTA/VyVDHgUp5nI/AAAAAAAADTQ/ZlWgEJIqfnE/s1600/20160422_125958.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7o7bUpnBJTA/VyVDHgUp5nI/AAAAAAAADTQ/ZlWgEJIqfnE/s320/20160422_125958.jpg" width="320" /></a>I was not manifesting the cavelier patterns of my youth any longer. Early Monday morning, I called the dentist, mapped my route and went in. He did some intense cleaning, confirmed that the x-rays showed no bone loss and then I was on my way with antibiotics and a warning not to drink alcohol. I staggered out of the office, bleeding and vulnerable, but also confident I was doing the right thing. &nbsp;But for this young woman, looking as emaciated as many of the Cambodian patients I left behind in Phnom Penh, there was no easy cure. She needed nourishment.</div><div dir="ltr"><br />The next morning, she said hello again and complained that the night walk had gone on quite late and she was tired. &nbsp;I asked her for a moment, and then asked if she was well. "Before you say anything else, let me ask you one thing first," she was strident and righteous."Do you think I'm anorexic?" &nbsp; I knew then I was in trouble.<br /><br />"It occurred to me, but really...." Before I could finish, she went on a tirade of stomach cancer and years of health problems, yelling as she walked away from me and retreating to her room. &nbsp;"I was speaking from compassion!," I said as her door closed.<br /><br /></div><div dir="ltr">I did not see her again, but I think of her managing all that pain alone. Over the past five years, I've learned the tools of self-reliance and resilience. &nbsp;I've polished my packing systems, sharpened my receptivity and defenses and at times wallowed deeply before rolling into the next wave. <br /><br /></div><div dir="ltr">There are some knowns about the future: my family and lifelong east coast friends await. There will always be a place for me. I'm confident about the job market for my skills. I'll need to spend some money to get things moving, but there is plenty of richness ahead. &nbsp;I am strong and capable, bruised and gray but still relatively attractive and ready for a new adventure.</div><div dir="ltr"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UgcW9s7r8RU/VyPT_snq0lI/AAAAAAAADS8/h44LlDxYatc/s1600/20160427_160930.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" height="180" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-UgcW9s7r8RU/VyPT_snq0lI/AAAAAAAADS8/h44LlDxYatc/s320/20160427_160930.jpg" width="320" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-71926542357866999282016-04-16T17:49:00.001-07:002017-01-01T06:51:30.969-08:00First-class Wilderness Architecture<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is a snapshot essay of the developments along the brand -new 3 Capes Track in Tasmania. Built over a period of 7 years, the track was a huge investment with legions of workers, over 15,000 helicopter cargo flights and 28 million Australian dollars.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I share the development instead if the nature because I was so inspired by the&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">combination of function and design along the way.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bMDTUnSNTcM/VxLdjBAr2tI/AAAAAAAADQ8/yVppjIxwXK4/s1600/20160405_152750.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bMDTUnSNTcM/VxLdjBAr2tI/AAAAAAAADQ8/yVppjIxwXK4/s640/20160405_152750.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">This is the first interpretative bench. Hikers are provided with a booklet tbat provides safety information and trail details. Each bench/seating area highlights a specific natural and social feature along the way. &nbsp;This bench looked out over Port Arthur, a prison community from the 1800's.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2yNwYkCQrgA/VxLdkU4gbqI/AAAAAAAADRA/BFTsdI6wySU/s1600/20160405_180033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2yNwYkCQrgA/VxLdkU4gbqI/AAAAAAAADRA/BFTsdI6wySU/s640/20160405_180033.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">First night's cabin powered by solar array and missing a small section of roof. The ranger joked about it, so perhaps the missing sheet is on the way. Or not. I'm not sure. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Each common area had a library of interpretative materials.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ExHnZEosiko/VxLos_o8o9I/AAAAAAAADSM/ik_Xn9mt6-Y/s1600/20160405_170953.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ExHnZEosiko/VxLos_o8o9I/AAAAAAAADSM/ik_Xn9mt6-Y/s640/20160405_170953.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&nbsp;Each night, we had a short orientation session with the ranger shortly after we arrived. These guys work for a couple weeks at a time. Our group was varied: 3 single people (me and a girl from Kuala Lumpur who shared a room each night, and an older single guy), Pensioners from Tasmania and other states in Australia with their 30-year old backpacks, newlyweds, couples and friends and families.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-08DqutDEpcw/VxLdlKVbrfI/AAAAAAAADRE/aGquplxHLhU/s1600/20160406_121103.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-08DqutDEpcw/VxLdlKVbrfI/AAAAAAAADRE/aGquplxHLhU/s640/20160406_121103.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A lot of the track is wood, here covered with chicken wire. Farther down the path seen in the upper part of the photo is Ellarwey Valley, named by a couple of 1970's Bushbashers who shortened it from "Where the hell are we." &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Alas, one of the members of our group knew one those explorers</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&nbsp;who died of Alzheimers Disease recently. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QzOss1kBekM/VxLhbcO_dII/AAAAAAAADRY/ci0L5Rb2eqg/s1600/20160406_153615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QzOss1kBekM/VxLhbcO_dII/AAAAAAAADRY/ci0L5Rb2eqg/s640/20160406_153615.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">With the helipad to the top right, you can see that these outhouses feature the flying poo, which is winched out to the edge of the platform for transport by helicopter. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0H0hwoNLON0/VxLhcOAnW6I/AAAAAAAADRc/cASW7PMdPV4/s1600/20160407_153646.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0H0hwoNLON0/VxLhcOAnW6I/AAAAAAAADRc/cASW7PMdPV4/s640/20160407_153646.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The shower at the Munro cabin, night 2. &nbsp;You can add a little hot water to the&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">bucket. Hoist it up and you are ready to go. &nbsp;I declined. Too cold.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SSzyk-Kd2G0/VxL_zHP7y5I/AAAAAAAADSc/V6RpPM9H4zY/s1600/20160407_202209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SSzyk-Kd2G0/VxL_zHP7y5I/AAAAAAAADSc/V6RpPM9H4zY/s640/20160407_202209.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Cooking gear and stoves are supplied. Look at all that gleaming steel. &nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The hand pump is a great feature.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-owdj7SSBgrw/VxLhdFPRwOI/AAAAAAAADRg/c5Yp0yxOwaI/s1600/20160407_172940.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-owdj7SSBgrw/VxLhdFPRwOI/AAAAAAAADRg/c5Yp0yxOwaI/s640/20160407_172940.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Deck chairs, yoga mats and foam rollers for post hike relaxation. BYOB.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-47i7EpTavbQ/VxLheUHQmXI/AAAAAAAADRk/bDUUyGmeY50/s1600/20160408_075815.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-47i7EpTavbQ/VxLheUHQmXI/AAAAAAAADRk/bDUUyGmeY50/s640/20160408_075815.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Love these simple design details that transform function into art.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-28QblnxWiP8/VxL_1GgG2VI/AAAAAAAADSg/PFZJf7Mm6hI/s1600/20160406_150454.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-28QblnxWiP8/VxL_1GgG2VI/AAAAAAAADSg/PFZJf7Mm6hI/s640/20160406_150454.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Memory foam mattresses covered with a soft rubber covering. Oh hale- Alaska State Parks!&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-pnfZeGnXzy0/VxLhfygMsnI/AAAAAAAADRo/nNjIcO8LwBE/s1600/20160408_090350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-pnfZeGnXzy0/VxLhfygMsnI/AAAAAAAADRo/nNjIcO8LwBE/s640/20160408_090350.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Another particularly artistic interpretative stop that was called "Blood on the Velvet Lounge"</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&nbsp;featuring insights on &nbsp;vicious insect predators.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-81EWn1_qlFE/VxLhhFnpegI/AAAAAAAADRs/xQwXBBlouOs/s1600/20160408_094935.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-81EWn1_qlFE/VxLhhFnpegI/AAAAAAAADRs/xQwXBBlouOs/s640/20160408_094935.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">These signs appear on the track every so often. &nbsp;Goofy newlyweds helped illustrate the dangers.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Yz8y0-hzqqI/VxLhif65AbI/AAAAAAAADRw/7icRULZSplU/s1600/20160408_114122.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Yz8y0-hzqqI/VxLhif65AbI/AAAAAAAADRw/7icRULZSplU/s640/20160408_114122.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Wow. &nbsp;The track follows the coast for most of the time.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TZMqlC84Ei0/VxLiAu1qwSI/AAAAAAAADR0/_ER6v8i2w00/s1600/20160408_150558.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TZMqlC84Ei0/VxLiAu1qwSI/AAAAAAAADR0/_ER6v8i2w00/s640/20160408_150558.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Believe it or not, most of the stones used in the trail</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">were flown in by helicopter. &nbsp;There was so much craft involved in</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">this effort. &nbsp;I found it illuminated and inspiring.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Xw9RnDZ-0ow/VxLiBt6ZROI/AAAAAAAADR4/wGg4GWwqrHk/s1600/20160408_152213.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Xw9RnDZ-0ow/VxLiBt6ZROI/AAAAAAAADR4/wGg4GWwqrHk/s640/20160408_152213.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The end the trail at Port Forescue.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PcVxEiuO-gA/VxL_19CQevI/AAAAAAAADSk/I02JuDG2u5w/s1600/20160407_120837.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> <img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PcVxEiuO-gA/VxL_19CQevI/AAAAAAAADSk/I02JuDG2u5w/s640/20160407_120837.jpg" /> </a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Selfie at the end of the trail down the blade. &nbsp;One of the first 3,000 people down the trail! &nbsp;</div>Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-82843760715553958612016-04-12T18:54:00.004-07:002017-01-01T06:50:20.879-08:00Start AgainStart Again, S.N. Goenka encouraged us. &nbsp;I was sitting in a darkened room with 28 other people in a forest retreat center north of Hobart Tasmania. My eyes closed in concentration, breathing deeply, my brain highly engaged in scanning my body for any sensations. I was frustrated and distracted by the shooting pains that radiated from my inner thigh to the to the tips of my toes, which escalated in earnest on Day 4. It was &nbsp;Vipassna Day, when we moved from concentrating on the area below our noses to the whole body. We were encouraged to sit motionless for two hours, under constant instruction for this pivotal moment in the practice. &nbsp;This was the beginning of the practice of "Sittings of Strong Determination."<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blueflamemagick.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/wheelbluegold1.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blueflamemagick.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/wheelbluegold1.gif" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Wheel of Life, part of the Universal <br />Law of Dhamma.&nbsp;An image often <br />associated with the<br />Vipassana practice.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><br />On the 5th day, I talked with the teacher about the pains and some of the thoughts that now passed through my mind. &nbsp; "The sensations are your Sankara Ellen." She reassured me. "Like everything, it will pass." &nbsp;Miraculously, on the second of 4 meditation sessions each day, it disappeared. It was always an unknown when it would come and go.<br /><br />On the 8th day, I felt myself breathing through my pelvis and the sensation of my heart beating through my eardrums. I had those glimpses of the miraculous dissolving body, my entire torso vibrating in minuscule rhythms. &nbsp; &nbsp;I was aligned with a universe that Buddhists have known for centuries. For for Westerners the rigor of a pre-dawn wake-up to the gong, not speaking for 10 days and absolving from food after 5pm is suggested to access the benefits of Vipassana meditation. &nbsp;I left the retreat center pounds lighter: not worried about the future, lean and disciplined, physically and mentally cleansed.<br /><br />Not to say that my thoughts stopped. They were not the usual circling tidbits of worry or conjecture that often populate my brain. Instead I was visited by people that I hadn't remembered for a while. Those who died, people I used to know well and now can't find (I tried again through Facebook when I came out) and the characters I have met all along the way. &nbsp;"This meditation is a really good life skill." I thought to myself, "Something that could be used in prisons very effectively."<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.buddhabrosco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/10-Day-Vipassana-Course-Timetable-300x269.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.buddhabrosco.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/10-Day-Vipassana-Course-Timetable-300x269.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The course schedule was rigorous, but grounding. I found it<br />much easier to make it to the meditation hall at 0530, in the hour<br />before I would&nbsp;meditate in &nbsp;my warm sleeping bag<br />&nbsp;with my eyes closed<br />Food was excellent.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />In Tasmania, the country was populated by convict women. &nbsp;In a ost-course field trip to the Cascades Female Factory, I learned that the convicts, often young women sentenced for petty crimes, were forced to remain silent during their terms. &nbsp;Higher performing prisoners were parceled out to British leaders' homes as cooks and cleaners. &nbsp;If, as a result of performing other duties, they became pregnant, they were deemed sinners and forced to return to the prison to give birth. The babies were raised in silence. The 10% who survived their first 5 years of life were completely mute, condemned to a life of asylums. &nbsp;They never got to really start again. &nbsp;If the mothers survived their imprisonment, they were often married out to seamen and began populating the country. &nbsp;Now in Tasmania, 70% of all residents are related to the convicts. <br /><br />There were times that the Vipassana meditation course felt like a silent prison. I was determined to serve my sentence, finish the course. Partly because I had no where else to go, but also because I wanted to finish and accomplish something tangible. &nbsp;I was a little sad to break my silence on the 10th day. &nbsp;I waited until the laughter of my fellow mediators faded and went to the forest. &nbsp;There, a small group stood in the sunshine and compared notes. &nbsp;I learned that the creatures I saw hopping around the Center were wallabies, not baby kangaroos. &nbsp;I found that the the words coming from my mouth felt trite, meaningless. The mental process I had experienced was so deeply personal and individual-- yet also universal-- it was hard to know how to move into the new world.<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://hn.newsbharati.com/Encyc/2013/9/30/26_01_14_27_s_n_goenka_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://hn.newsbharati.com/Encyc/2013/9/30/26_01_14_27_s_n_goenka_1.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">S.N. Goenka, the teacher who moved the Vipassna meditation<br />technique from a temple in Burma to international practice.<br />The course is taught with videos and recordings of his teachings.<br />A special guy.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I am now truly starting again. This isn't unfamiliar-- my transitions have typically lept from a stable environment into unknowns. &nbsp;I think of myself as a bird-like pollinator, moving from place to place.<br /><br />After I returned from the course, I prepared for my hiking trip along the coast of the Tasman Sea. On the hike, the views stretched out far beyond. The horizon faded to sky. There is an uncharted ocean of new experiences and relationships ahead. &nbsp;The tool of meditation will be a great salve to cope with the uncertainties of my future: new job, new friends, hopefully new ways of coping with stress and the precarious financial future.<br /><br />I know, after some experience, that things will always work out. &nbsp;I am now reassured that there will always be people with whom I share the commitment to sit, with eyes closed, ardently and passionately pursuing the awareness of breath and body. Or a knitting group to join, or writers's workshops and classes. &nbsp; One always has to be committed to starting again. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/8d/57/f8/8d57f8dc316709c13492181f4d4ea049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/8d/57/f8/8d57f8dc316709c13492181f4d4ea049.jpg" /></a></div><br />Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5237632116830048138.post-83887120342734918872016-03-21T18:06:00.005-07:002017-01-01T17:57:17.339-08:00The 4 Winds Converge as the Sun Sets on the Kindom<b>The Four Winds Converge</b><br /><br />Last month a friend suffered from high fever, vomiting, skin rashes, joint pains and extreme fatigue. After getting her test results back from an outpatient visit, her red blood cell count was low and &nbsp;she was admitted to the hospital. &nbsp;Further tests showed that she had an "unspecified viral illness", a common malady here.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nK7Q5G5Z4eI/VvCSSNNPRTI/AAAAAAAADPg/KoHJdAbXNRAb4CY3i8VwdhQm2bhHgeJNw/s1600/20151230_180058%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nK7Q5G5Z4eI/VvCSSNNPRTI/AAAAAAAADPg/KoHJdAbXNRAb4CY3i8VwdhQm2bhHgeJNw/s320/20151230_180058%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A moving day in Cambodia.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>"Maybe it was the wind", my colleague said. For many Cambodians, ill-health and strong emotions are characterized like forces that blow through your body and impact your physical and mental health. <br /><br />In the final week of my departure, &nbsp;I had dinner on Saturday night with my noodle seller friend, Ratha, her parents and 2 other friends, a English-speaking brother and sister that help her with the 2 food carts she operates each day and night. We were set up at their evening soup stand location on Norodom, just up the street from my old apartment, which I had just moved out of that afternoon.&nbsp;Traffic whizzed by as the breezes were brisk and cool. We sat around a table filled with river prawns in lemongrass sauce, slices of bony duck and a pizza(my contribution).<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LmASck0jMKE/VvCT9JHjoQI/AAAAAAAADP4/hCaFJtpXq1ITZ3LRAFMerZMt3PTlTWojQ/s1600/20150726_094057%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LmASck0jMKE/VvCT9JHjoQI/AAAAAAAADP4/hCaFJtpXq1ITZ3LRAFMerZMt3PTlTWojQ/s320/20150726_094057%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ratha looking relaxed at an enagement party in Aretkesat across the river</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xOBnvuOg9i0/VvCVQuSERMI/AAAAAAAADQA/dOlj8LkvfpMnifjDOJtd_pwRBsj0v2nZw/s1600/20140214_110109%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xOBnvuOg9i0/VvCVQuSERMI/AAAAAAAADQA/dOlj8LkvfpMnifjDOJtd_pwRBsj0v2nZw/s320/20140214_110109%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ratha at the temple in Kampong Speu, when I took<br />the day off to visit on Buddha's birthday in 2014.</td></tr></tbody></table>I became weepy as Ratha presented me with a braacelet she ordered from the local market silversmith: a chain with three blocks of etched letters across the wrist: Ratha Love Ellen.&nbsp; I was now on a train pulling out of the station.<br /><br />No turning back, buffeted by emotions: Relief, Sadness, Frustration, and Fear.<br /><br />"What will you miss about Cambodia", the friends ask. It is mixed feelings,<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NOhrXZOfoDw/VvCVn-Nlq6I/AAAAAAAADQE/AFBCHZ1LMfcML9DKXJJH0kohbygw_dZhA/s1600/20160301_132327%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NOhrXZOfoDw/VvCVn-Nlq6I/AAAAAAAADQE/AFBCHZ1LMfcML9DKXJJH0kohbygw_dZhA/s320/20160301_132327%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A surprise going -away party. hosted &nbsp;by the clinical teams of<br />my key projects. &nbsp;<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Dr. Rin,(R) is the lead diabetes doctor.</span><br />Dr. Nara(L) is the lead for Women's Health. I raised over<br />$250,000 for their programs and am so rpoud of them.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kPv_mKpMFRA/VvCSKKtnTBI/AAAAAAAADPc/iZ8yy2XmgLo3lHq0bDX3x_sUkQbl_l9Cw/s1600/20151125_173126%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a>I will miss the plants and flowers everywhere, sheets of bright pink bougainvillea spilling off balconies. The sounds and sights of the street vendors: balloons and doughnuts&nbsp;sold from bicycles, push carts of &nbsp;household goods and the line-up of banana leaf-wrapped roasted sticky rice packets. Monks: jammed into a tuk-tuk&nbsp;(monkmobile!) or walking the streets in the morning under their burnt sienna umbrellas, both resplendent and understated in their bright orange robes. One morning in my last week, a brief surge of emotion rocked through me as I heard their chants from a streetside funeral ceremony. &nbsp;The groups with whom I found community: writers, stitchers.and friends. &nbsp;I will miss the smiles of people,who I would often try to engage in traffic: a small wave, or a friendly hello. The spirit houses everywhere, bunches of incense and bananas as those offerings of gratitude. &nbsp;Cheap everything.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kPv_mKpMFRA/VvCSKKtnTBI/AAAAAAAADPc/iZ8yy2XmgLo3lHq0bDX3x_sUkQbl_l9Cw/s1600/20151125_173126%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kPv_mKpMFRA/VvCSKKtnTBI/AAAAAAAADPc/iZ8yy2XmgLo3lHq0bDX3x_sUkQbl_l9Cw/s320/20151125_173126%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evening traffic at Independence Monument.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>There are many things I will not miss: the small piles of burning leaves and plastic bags that pepper the streets in the evenings, the stagnant, sticky and oppressive world of traffic at rush hour. After a long day of brain-jangling questions and problems, I would sit surrounded by heat and exhaust in the back seat of the tuk-tuk. All I wanted to do was to calm myself and breathe deeply, yet it felt so unhealthy and destructive to do so. &nbsp;The sights on the streets: beggars of all forms,&nbsp;enormous cement trucks dwarf the toddlers&nbsp;squeezed&nbsp;in among their 2-3 or 4 family members as piles of sand and rebar spill over into th roadway, men peeing everywhere.&nbsp; Texting or and talking while driving(a moto), near misses, frequent minor crackups. Last week I saw a moto swipe another and 3 boys on a bike went down, the youngest at the rear had his ankle pinned against the exhaust pipe. The burn, pale and large on the inside of his ankle as the boy wept and staggered to the sidewalk. His slightly older friend takes some icecubes from his drink. &nbsp;I could do nothing to help. <br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DNO1rEwpSRc/VvCgqsE3gYI/AAAAAAAADQo/S1Yf8AgBkXwIRhbG7DyrH0m2dQ2DVXNBw/s1600/Cyclo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DNO1rEwpSRc/VvCgqsE3gYI/AAAAAAAADQo/S1Yf8AgBkXwIRhbG7DyrH0m2dQ2DVXNBw/s320/Cyclo.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Storming the Cyclo in early 2014 with co-conspirator<br />Monika. Stitch and Bitch reconnected me with knitting again<br />and even better, helped me make new friends. <br />Discussing specs with Monika and Glorianne.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><b>The Sun Sets on the Kingdom</b><br /><br />The last week is a blur of tippy tappy&nbsp;typing, deadlines, final connections with friends and colleagues, last meals at favorite places, sleepless nights and a numb adherence to my checklist. My colleagues and a friend join for sunset cruise that I'd organized instead of the hospital's typical expat farewell that is filled with speeches. &nbsp;I am left without words, for if I start speaking my emotions will overpower my ability to speak. I can only suggest a few key messages: change is inevitable- and in change the only thing we can control is ourselves. &nbsp;So focus, learn and grow, have the courage to try new things. Lean to positivity. We watch the small bundles of water hyacinth drift by as the sun is low and red on the horizon.<br /><br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f_VizmPEPqU/VvCTJ2ZUesI/AAAAAAAADPo/FObT7rBv4osiKMxkUEz4DxPlExG06B81g/s1600/20160224_175004%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-18H061ME4ik/VvCWUqWpXoI/AAAAAAAADQM/rXm8KHs64D8OfDqBiP1jjb5KNSMk4rxVg/s1600/20150403_210746%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-18H061ME4ik/VvCWUqWpXoI/AAAAAAAADQM/rXm8KHs64D8OfDqBiP1jjb5KNSMk4rxVg/s320/20150403_210746%255B1%255D.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">With Mr. Vanarith at the Khmer New year Party 2015,<br />who joined us as<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">a volunteer for</span><br /><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">&nbsp;his first job out of college.</span><br />I taught him how to work.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>I realize then that leaving is easy. I am a little frustrated that I couldn't stay longer (the leaving date was determined by a retreat start date) and there is palatable fear around the fact that my replacement wasn't identifed before I left. There is a bit of relief, leaving before the really hot season begins and when I lose all ability for crisp and responsive action and thinking. &nbsp;There is genuine sadness. I left a part of my soul in Cambodia, impact on friends and colleagues. &nbsp;People&nbsp;asked me, "What is the plan?" &nbsp;At this moment, I try to avoid the vast and expensive reality that will be repatriation.<br /><br /><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f_VizmPEPqU/VvCTJ2ZUesI/AAAAAAAADPo/FObT7rBv4osiKMxkUEz4DxPlExG06B81g/s1600/20160224_175004%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a>I am leaving during a tumultuous time- for the country and for the organization. It would have been more courageous to stay, but the tremendous pull of the tide toward home is strong and will carry me through a whole new series of unknowns. My international experience over&nbsp;4 years in southeast Asia was rich, transformative and satisfying.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f_VizmPEPqU/VvCTJ2ZUesI/AAAAAAAADPo/FObT7rBv4osiKMxkUEz4DxPlExG06B81g/s1600/20160224_175004%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-f_VizmPEPqU/VvCTJ2ZUesI/AAAAAAAADPo/FObT7rBv4osiKMxkUEz4DxPlExG06B81g/s320/20160224_175004%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riverfront and the Royal Palace.</td></tr></tbody></table><br />I board a boat this afternoon, crossing the Bass Straits over night. Tomorrow, afternon I will enter the Sangha of Dhamma Pabha, a community on the foothills of Mount Dromedary north of Hobart for 10 days of hard meditative practice-- and a nice hike along the shores of the Tasman Sea.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6soIIdSNeyU/VvCW0x6BFnI/AAAAAAAADQU/62hAhUinm4gGQT4vjI-4Y_cZw19kIMRqw/s1600/20160319_183303%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6soIIdSNeyU/VvCW0x6BFnI/AAAAAAAADQU/62hAhUinm4gGQT4vjI-4Y_cZw19kIMRqw/s400/20160319_183303%255B1%255D.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunset on my departing flight from Cambodia</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br />Ellen Malinghttps://plus.google.com/113382028302587694520noreply@blogger.com0